Fears raised Paris attacks could be start of new terror wave

The bloodshed in France could signal the start of a wave of attacks in Europe, according to communications by Islamic State leaders intercepted by US intelligence, German newspaper Bild reported Sunday.

Shortly after the attacks in Paris, the US National Security Agency had intercepted communications in which leaders of the jihadist group announced the next wave of attacks, the tabloid said, citing unnamed sources in the US intelligence services.

Paris was cited as being the signal for a series of attacks on other European cities, including Rome, the newspaper said, adding however that a concrete plan of attack was not known.

The US services also had information that Cherif and Said Kouachi, the brothers who carried out the massacre at French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo, had contacts in the Netherlands, Bild said.

According to a separate report in CNN, police were put on high alert after intelligence learned that terrorist Amedy Coulibaly could have activated sleeper cells, who plan on attacking law enforcement.

Seventeen people were killed in the attacks on the magazine, a kosher supermarket in Paris and police. The three gunmen — the Kouachi brothers and Coulibaly — were killed by French police.

A manhunt is still underway for the girlfriend or wife of Coulibaly.

Despite earlier being described as “armed and dangerous”, security sources later revealed that 26-year-old Hayat Boumeddiene was not in fact in France at the time of the killings.

Her partner Coulibaly shot dead a young policewoman on Thursday and then killed four Jewish hostages in a siege on a kosher supermarket in Paris on Friday.

While police initially suspected Boumeddiene may have had a role in her partner’s violent acts, a Turkish security source told AFP she arrived in Turkey on January 2 and had since likely traveled on to Syria.

Meanwhile, France deployed hundreds of troops around Paris Saturday, further beefing up security on the eve of a march planned for Sunday, which some 30 world leaders plan to attend amid some 1 million other expected participants

“The real battle is to defend freedom of thought,” said 40-year-old Yamina, tears in her eyes, at a rally in the southern city of Marseille at a rally Saturday where marchers carried signs declaring “Not afraid!” and held aloft pens and pencils.

The three-day killing spree began Wednesday with the massacre at the office of satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo that saw Cherif and Said Kouachi massacre 12 people including some of the country’s best-known cartoonists and a day later, Coulibaly shot dead the policewoman.

The massive manhunt for the two brothers developed into a car chase Friday and then a tense standoff as they took one person hostage in a printing firm northeast of Paris.

The small town of Dammartin-en-Goele was transformed into what looked like a war zone, with elite forces deploying snipers, helicopters and heavy-duty military equipment as they surrounded the pair.

With all eyes on the siege outside Paris, suddenly explosions and gunfire shook the City of Light itself as Coulibaly stormed a Jewish supermarket on the eastern fringes of the capital, killing four.

As the sun set, the brothers in Dammartin-en-Goele charged out of the building with guns blazing in a desperate last stand, before being cut down.

Within minutes, elite commando units moved in Paris against Coulibaly, who had threatened to execute his hostages unless the brothers were released.

He had just knelt for his evening prayer when the specialists burst in.

Up to five people — including a three-year-old boy — survived hidden inside a refrigerator for five hours, with police pinpointing their location using their mobile phones, prosecutors and relatives said.

After Friday’s dramatic events, Hollande warned grimly that the threats facing France were not over — comments followed by a chilling new threat from the Yemen-based Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula group.

AQAP top sharia official Harith al-Nadhari warned France to “stop your aggression against the Muslims” or face further attacks,” in comments released by the SITE monitoring group.

Leaders have urged the country to pull together in grief and determination, but questions are mounting over how the three men — Cherif and Said Kouachi, and Coulibaly — slipped through the security net.

Valls admitted there had been “clear failings” in intelligence.

Cherif Kouachi, 32, was a known jihadist who was convicted in 2008 for involvement in a network sending fighters to Iraq.

His brother Said, 34, was known to have travelled to Yemen in 2011, where he received weapons training from AQAP.

It also emerged that the brothers had been on a US terror watch list “for years”.

Coulibaly, 32 — who met Cherif Kouachi in prison — was sentenced to five years in prison in 2013 for his role in a failed bid to break an Algerian Islamist, Smain Ait Ali Belkacem, out of jail.

Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.