French prosecutors have charged one of the “terrorist commandos of young women” arrested over a foiled attack near Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris.
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A week after a vehicle containing seven cylinders of gas was discovered near Notre Dame cathedral in Paris, French authorities have said they have discovered another auto filled with gas canisters in Marseilles.
Police say the alleged ISIL cell was plotting other “imminent and violent” attacks.
Investigators are looking into calls made by a French member of the Islamic State group, Rachid Kassim, for supporters of the group to strike French targets.
Laurent Nunez, the police commissioner of the Bouches-du-Rhone region, said no detonation device was found.
“The transition to action by these young women, who were directed by individuals within the ranks of Islamic State in Syria, shows that this organization wants to create female fighters”.
More than a third of the almost 700 French citizens who have reached Iraq and Syria are women, according to government figures.
The official also said the youngest of the three women, a 19 year-old whose father was the owner of the auto and who was already suspected by police of wanting to go and fight for Islamic State in Syria, had written a letter pledging allegiance to the militant Islamist group.
She is also known to police for attempting to join insurgents in Syria. Kermiche and another attacker were shot to death by police. One empty canister was sitting on the passenger seat, but no detonators were found.
The suspect, a 19-year-old known as Ines Madani, was shot in the leg by police on Thursday evening after she stabbed a police officer with a knife.
Anthropologist Bouzar said one direct fallout of the most recent case would be felt by Muslim women in France.
The source said the 15-year-old had been in touch with Kassim using the encrypted messaging app Telegram.
The boy had been under house arrest since France declared a state emergency after the November 13, 2015 attacks in Paris in which IS group militants killed 130 people, two sources said on condition of anonymity.
France has weathered a string of deadly Islamist terror attacks over the summer, most devastatingly the Bastille Day attack in Nice.
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Molins said Sarah H., who was shot in the leg during the raid, had stabbed a police officer through the open window of a vehicle, while Ines had stabbed another officer as she tried to escape.
