One of the four women, 23-year-old Sarah H., had ties to French nationals who killed three people in recent terror attacks on French soil. The suspect who turned 15 a few days ago has been on police watch list since April, officials said.
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Authorities also arrested another 15-year-old last week on suspicion of planning an attack in the name of ISIS.
The unnamed youth was arrested at his home near the Coulée Verte, a “green corridor” walkway in Paris similar to New York’s High Line, where detectives allege he was planning to stab random passers-by last weekend.
The two officials were not authorized to speak publicly about the cases and asked to remain anonymous.
The teenager, who is thought to have been using encrypted social media channels to communicate with a French Islamist militant Rachid Kassim was detained in eastern Paris on Wednesday.
Kassim’s precise role is under investigation, but officials say he has become a key instigator who directs recruits in encrypted forums on how and where to carry out the Islamic State’s call for European Muslims to strike at home.
The arrest comes after French authorities stopped two attacks they believe to have been inspired by ISIS, including a planned attack by three women, one a 19-year-old, on Paris’s Notre Dame cathedral using a vehicle filled with gas cylinders.
French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve confirmed the arrest and said that intelligence services were working harder than ever to prevent future attacks. But he didn’t elaborate on any direct links between the boy and the IS group.
The extremist group “uses encrypted means to encourage increasingly young” individuals, he said, citing the messaging application Telegram.
Frederique Calandra, second from right, mayor of the district where the boy arrested Wednesday lives with his family, said he attended school and was not known to anti-terrorist officials.
French Prime Minister Manuel Valls warned on Sunday that the terrorist threat was at its “maximum” level and said France’s security forces were “foiling attacks every single day”.
It declared a state of emergency after the November attacks in Paris claimed the lives of more than 130 people.
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Young teenage suspects are confounding even communities where they live.
