The burka-clad woman accused of murdering an American teacher in an Abu Dhabi shopping mall was not operating alone, local police have said.
Dalal al-Hashemi, 38, a UAE citizen of Yemeni origin will now stand trial in a state security court, accused of fatally stabbing Ibolya Ryan, 37, and then, hours later, planting a bomb in front of the home of an Egyptian-American doctor.
Police have now said they believe that Mrs Hashemi was not a “lone wolf”, adding that others had been arrested during a raid on the suspect’s home.
The Emirati woman’s white colonnaded house was a “base of operations”, police told the American network ABC News, but did not provide further details. The announcement came amid mounting speculation that the killer might have acted out of support for the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil), the jihadist group with burgeoning influence across the Middle East.
“There is a lot of sympathy for Isil in the region after the US bombing campaign on their positions in Iraq and Syria,” said Hassan Hassan, an analyst at the Delma Institute, a research centre in Abu Dhabi. “It could be that this is a response to the call by Isil to take revenge on countries taking part in the air strikes.”
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