“The Peugeot 607 was found with its hazard warning lights flashing and without number plates”, police said. No one was inside, but police found six canisters filled with gas in the trunk and an empty canister in the auto.
Advertisement
The car’s owner and an associate, both known to police, were arrested on Tuesday, they said, adding a preliminary investigation had been launched.
In November past year, suicide bombers and gunmen killed 130 people in Paris in coordinated attacks claimed by the Islamic State jihadist group.
A auto containing several gas cylinders was discovered on a Seine riverside stretch close to Notre Dame cathedral in Paris on Saturday.
“The auto was parked for nearly two hours, according to my information”, in an area where parking “is forbidden”, Florence Berthout, the head of the neighborhood where the vehicle was found, told BFMTV.
Meanwhile, prosecutors in Austria have charged two men with being part of Islamic State as part of ongoing investigations into the Paris attacks. No detonator device was found with the canisters, but the discovery nonetheless raised fears of a terror plot. Florence Berthout, centre-Right mayor of the 5th arrondissement, said she had been informed on Monday that the vehicle had “remained stationary for nearly two hours” despite being in a zone where parking is “forbidden”.
Police in Paris have arrested three women on Thursday evening (8 September) in an operation in which a policeman was stabbed and one of the women then shot and injured.
Three women who were likely planning an “imminent and violent” attack were arrested near Paris on Thursday, French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said.
It added that the auto owner is known to the French intelligence service and several people were in custody on Wednesday morning.
She said the vehicle was left in a zone where parking is strictly prohibited and that it had remained there for around two hours before it came to the attention of police.
The pair were picked up near Montargis, about 65 miles south of the French capital bringing to four the number of people held in connection with the abandoned vehicle. A tragedy in Nice on July 14 of this year killed at least 84 people when a truck driven by an IS sympathizer plowed through crowds during Bastille Day celebrations.
Less than two weeks later, two young extremists murdered a priest near the northern city of Rouen.
Advertisement
France’s top prosecutor said last week that around 700 French nationals were now in Syria.
