White House admits error at Paris rally

Associated Press

WASHINGTON

In a rare admission of error, the White House said Monday that President Barack Obama or another high-level representative should have joined dozens of world leaders at an anti-terror rally in Paris.

While leaders from Europe, the Middle East and Africa linked arms for Sunday’s march through the boulevards of Paris, the United States was represented by its ambassador to France. Attorney General Eric Holder was in Paris for security meetings but did not attend the march.

“It’s fair to say we should have sent someone with a higher profile,” White House spokesman Josh Earnest said. The administration also announced that Secretary of State John Kerry, who was on a long-planned trip to India on Sunday, will visit France later this week.

The White House appeared to have been caught off guard by both the scope of international representation at the rally and by the criticism of the decision to send only Ambassador Jane Hartley.

Monday’s admission of error seemed aimed at blunting criticism that the decision was tone-deaf or disrespectful of the longstanding U.S. alliance with France.

France has been on edge after the attacks that left 17 people dead and heightened fears about the spread of terrorism in the West.

Three of the gunmen, who claimed allegiance to Islamic extremist groups, were killed by police, though French authorities said Monday that more terror cell members might still be at large.

Before the White House acknowledged its misstep, Florida Republican Sen. Marco Rubio said the administration had made a mistake by not at least sending Holder or Kerry to attend the Sunday rally.

Meanwhile, as many as six members of a terrorist cell involved in the Paris attacks may still be at large, including a man who was seen driving a car registered to the widow of one of the gunmen, French police said Monday.

The disclosure came as France deployed 10,000 troops to protect sensitive sites — including Jewish schools and neighborhoods — in the wake of the attacks that killed 17 people last week.

Brothers Cherif and Said Kouachi and their friend, Amedy Coulibaly, were killed Friday by police after a murderous spree at the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo and a kosher supermarket. The three all claimed ties to Islamic extremists in the Middle East.

Two police officials told The Associated Press that authorities were searching the Paris area for the Mini Cooper registered to Hayat Boumeddiene, Coulibaly’s widow. Turkish officials say she is in Syria.

One of the police officials said the cell consisted of about 10 members, and that “five or six could still be at large,” but he did not provide their names.

The other official said the cell was made up of about eight people and included Boumeddiene.

One of the other men believed to be part of the cell has been seen driving Boumeddiene’s car around Paris in recent days, the two officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the investigation with the media. They cautioned that it was not clear whether the driver was an operative, involved in logistics, or had some other, less-violent role in the cell.

An Interior Ministry official declined to comment on an ongoing investigation, and a spokeswoman for the Paris prosecutor’s office was not immediately available to comment.

One of the police officials also said Coulibaly apparently set off a car bomb Thursday in the town of Villejuif, but no one was injured and it did not receive significant media attention at the time.

Prime Minister Manuel Valls said the manhunt is urgent because “the threat is still present” from the attacks.

“The work on these attacks, on these terrorist and barbaric acts continues ... because we consider that there are most probably some possible accomplices,” Valls told BFM television.

The nationwide deployment of troops would be completed by today and would focus on the most sensitive locations, Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said.

By midday Monday, soldiers and police filled Paris’ Marais district — one of the country’s oldest Jewish neighborhoods. About 4,700 of the security forces would be assigned to protect France’s 717 Jewish schools, Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said.