A tale of two women

One of the women, Abaaoud’s cousin, jumped into his arms, saying, “Hamid, you’re alive!”

But her companion, who had come without knowing who they were to meet, felt a shudder of recognition. “I’d seen him on TV,” she later told police, referring to videos from Syria that showed Abaaoud dragging dead bodies behind a truck.

The meeting, which was described by the woman in an interview and confirmed in French investigative files obtained by The Washington Post, set in motion a three-day sequence that culminated in a raid on an apartment in Saint-Denis, north of Paris. Abaaoud, 28, was killed in that operation by authorities who subsequently learned that he was plotting additional attacks.

His plans were derailed largely because of his decision to involve two women whose impulses when faced with the choice of trying to help him or stop him were immediately at odds.

His cousin, a troubled, 26-year-old woman named Hasna Ait Boulahcen, helped Abaaoud elude authorities for days and died with him in the Saint-Denis apartment, where one of the cornered militants detonated a suicide bomb.

The other woman, who had served as a surrogate mother to Ait Boulahcen for several years, secretly called and met with police, providing information that probably helped authorities stave off another wave of attacks.

The relationship between the two women in many ways reflects broader tensions in Muslim communities across Europe over interpretations of their religion, degrees of loyalty to their countries and the insidious appeal of the Islamic State.

confuzzled dude wrote:

One of the women, Abaaoud’s cousin, jumped into his arms, saying, “Hamid, you’re alive!”

But her companion, who had come without knowing who they were to meet, felt a shudder of recognition. “I’d seen him on TV,” she later told police, referring to videos from Syria that showed Abaaoud dragging dead bodies behind a truck.

The meeting, which was described by the woman in an interview and confirmed in French investigative files obtained by The Washington Post, set in motion a three-day sequence that culminated in a raid on an apartment in Saint-Denis, north of Paris. Abaaoud, 28, was killed in that operation by authorities who subsequently learned that he was plotting additional attacks.

His plans were derailed largely because of his decision to involve two women whose impulses when faced with the choice of trying to help him or stop him were immediately at odds.

His cousin, a troubled, 26-year-old woman named Hasna Ait Boulahcen, helped Abaaoud elude authorities for days and died with him in the Saint-Denis apartment, where one of the cornered militants detonated a suicide bomb.

The other woman, who had served as a surrogate mother to Ait Boulahcen for several years, secretly called and met with police, providing information that probably helped authorities stave off another wave of attacks.

The relationship between the two women in many ways reflects broader tensions in Muslim communities across Europe over interpretations of their religion, degrees of loyalty to their countries and the insidious appeal of the Islamic State.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/one-woman-helped-the-mastermind-of-the-paris-attacks-the-other-turned-him-in/2016/04/10/66bce472-fc47-11e5-9140-e61d062438bb_story.html?hpid=hp_rhp-top-table-main_pariswomen-430pm%3Ahomepage%2Fstory

Media needs to promote similar stories like this to alleviate, growing discontent directed at muslims