Terror threat

Now ISIS Is Turning Women Into Cannon Fodder in France

Whether out of desperation or by design, the so-called Islamic State has turned to women and children to try to carry out a new wave of attacks in France, and possibly elsewhere.

The first disturbing hint of the conspiracy came Sunday a week ago, when a car was found abandoned early in the morning near Notre Dame Cathedral, a prime tourist destination at the historical and religious heart of Paris. In the trunk were five large canisters of cooking gas, and three bottles of diesel fuel.

From the beginning, it looked like the kind of low-grade soft-target terror plot that the self-proclaimed ISIS caliphate has made a key part of its strategy to demoralize the West, and especially France.

But there was this critical difference: Investigators found that almost all the alleged conspirators were women, and that a male French jihadist known as Rachid Kassim had run them “by remote control” from his base in ISIS-controlled areas of Iraq and Syria.