Paris police source claims Europe's 'first female suicide bomber' did not blow herself up

Samuel Osborne
The Independent
Sat, 21 Nov 2015 19:09 UTC

© Green Apple / YouTube

Boulahcen is reported to have shouted: 'Help me, help me, I am on fire,' prior to the explosion in Saint-Denis

Hasna Ait Boulahcen, the woman labelled "Europe's first woman suicide bomber" did not blow herself up during a police raid on an apartment building in Saint-Denis, new reports have claimed.

Despite French prosecutors initially saying she had detonated an explosives vest and died during the assault on Wednesday, a police source reportedly told Agence France-Presse​ news agency the suicide bomber who blew themselves up was a man, not a woman.

Boulahcen is reported to have shouted: "Help me, help me, I am on fire," prior to the explosion. Her body parts were later found strewn across the road.

It was through intercepting Aitboulahcen's phone calls that security agencies were able to track her cousin Abdelhamid Abaaoud and six other terror suspects to their hiding place.

After the explosion of the suicide bomb, sporadic gunfire could be heard from within the flat.

Jean-Michel Fauvergue, the head of the elite Raid unit that led the operation, described his officers "saturating the place with grenades" when firing continued after Aitboulahcen had blown herself up and a sniper had hit another man.

Officers eventually arrested three men from inside the building and another man and woman found outside.

Authorities believe they are part of a terror cell set to carry out a second attack, reportedly targeting Charles de Gaulle airport and Paris' financial district La Defense.

Francois Molins, the Paris prosecutor, said the operation neutralised a "new terrorist threat", and that "everything led us to believe that, considering their armaments, the structured organisation and their determination, they were ready to act".

Comment: As Harrison Koehli remarked in his recent article:

So what was it? "Help me! Help me!" or "Allahu Akbar!"? And what leads them to believe it was a suicide bombing? What about a SWAT grenade, or a bomb detonated by someone else in the apartment? In the recording, the woman clearly sounds distressed, and just like the Stade de France attacks, this 'bombing' did not target anyone except the alleged bomber - not your typical suicide bombing. And how did the man die? Sniper, multiple gunshots, grenade, or suicide vest? If he died at the same time as the woman, as some reports suggest, and if he died from a grenade, is it possible the woman died from the same cause? These kinds of conflicting statements also defined the end-game of the Toulouse shootings in 2012.