French investigators were on Saturday probing a group of women arrested on suspicion of plotting new jihadist attacks, including an attempted vehicle bomb near Paris’s Notre Dame cathedral.
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Ornella G., as the suspect is identified, is charged with terrorism association and attempted murder as part of a terrorist group, the Wall Street Journal reported.
A security official said that France’s intelligence services “detected a threat” and a judicial official said police moved into action Saturday fearing a planned attack this weekend.
Ornella G. told police that she and Madani tried to set the auto alight but “fled when they saw a man they believed to be a plain-clothes policeman”.
The arrests resulted from the discovery of a vehicle containing five gas canisters parked near Paris’s Notre Dame cathedral earlier this week. They did not say why he was under house arrest.
The prime minister’s warning of imminent attacks also follows last week’s thwarted ISIS plot to attack the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris.
Sarah H. had promised to marry Larossi Abballa, 25, who died in a raid in a Paris suburb after killing two police employees and taking their infant hostage in June, Mr. Molins said.
“He is wrong about trying to wring the neck of the rule of law”, Mr Valls said.
Ines Madani and two other women – named as Amel S., 39, and 23-year-old Sarah H. – were arrested Thursday before they could carry out an attack on a rail station in Paris, prosecutors said.
Another woman, Sarah H, 23, attacked and wounded a plain clothes officer with a kitchen knife through the open window of his auto.
“If at first it appeared that women were confined to family and domestic chores by the Daesh terrorist organization, it must be noted that this view is now completely outdated”, Molins said.
Mr Molins said the investigation of the aborted attack had led to the dismantling of a “terrorist commando of young women” aligned with the Islamic State group.
Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said that police had arrested 293 people this year for “links to terrorist networks”.
He said 700 French jihadists were now fighting with Isis in Syria, including more than 200 women.
The extremist group claimed responsibility for the Paris attacks in November that killed 130 people, among a series of recent assaults attributed to its followers including the Nice truck attack.
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Sources did not reveal why the teenager was under house arrest.
