Three women arrested after a auto loaded with gas cylinders was found near Notre Dame cathedral were carrying out orders by Islamic State to attack a major Paris train station, French officials have said.
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Ines M. – whose full surname has not been revealed – was one of three women suspected of setting up a terror cell in Boussy-Saint-Antoine, south of the French capital.
Police found a letter on Madani, written to her mother, in which she stated she wanted to avenge the death of Abou Mohammed al-Adnani, the senior figure from Isis who has ordered attacks on western targets particularly in France.
Three women arrested Thursday in France were a terror cell directed by ISIS from Syria, French prosecutor Francois Molins said Friday.
The French police arrested the boyfriend of one of three women held over the discovery of a auto laden with gas cylinders in Paris, sources close to the probe said Friday.
Four people were detained earlier in the week, and another man, the fiance of the 23 year-old woman, has also since been arrested, police sources said. He also has a brother who is now in prison for having connections with Larossi Abballa, an IS militant who killed a policeman and his partner in June of this year.
She was also betrothed to Adel Kermiche, who slit the throat of an elderly French priest during morning mass in Normandy in July.
She is also known to police for attempting to join insurgents in Syria.
Had the terrorist attack been successful, it would have been the first to be carried out by an all-woman group.
France is on high alert following a string of attacks claimed by ISIL, including last November’s coordinated attacks in which assailants killed 130 people in Paris.
Last Sunday, police found in a vehicle in the center of Paris five gas canisters, a blanket covered with petrol and a lighted cigarette.
Police intercepted communications between Madani and another woman which confirmed their fear they were about to try to strike again.
The others arrested were said to be aged 39 and 23. One of them stabbed a police official before being shot and injured. The owner of the Peugeot 607 was the father of one of the suspects, who had gone missing from home earlier this week, Molins said.
The new arrests bring the total number of suspects in police custody to seven.
Photographs of the auto after it was discovered showed its boot open and the gas cylinders placed on the ground in a quiet side street opposite the cathedral.
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Police arrested the man’s brother and his girlfriend, both aged 26, late Wednesday, September 7.
