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Paris prosecutor: Failed Notre Dam attack plotted by women

The prosecutor said the cell of women terrorists showed that Islamic State “intends to make women into fighters”.

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“They were guided by individuals in Syria in the ranks of Islamic State. that intends to use women as combatants”, he added, noting that the IS has used even young women who develop their plot from distance.

Ornella G.’s fingerprints were found in a Peugeot auto abandoned last Sunday a few hundred metres from Notre Dame with five gas cylinders and three bottles of diesel fuel inside, according to the probe.

Before the discovery of the Peugeot early Sunday, Mr Molins was expressing concerns about the growing number of women involved in terrorism.

The other man she was engaged to, Larossi Abballa, murdered two police officers in June and managed to film the aftermath before being killed in a police raid.

French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said it still was not clear why the auto was abandoned or what the alleged intentions were of those under arrest.

Four people – two brothers and their girlfriends – are already in custody over the discovery of the auto.

Police and officers from the DGSI, France’s counter-terrorism intelligence agency, had been on the trail of the trio since Sunday, when a vehicle full of gas canisters was found parked in Paris.

Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said the 19-year-old and her accomplices were preparing “imminent” attacks.

The trio had been plotting another attack, and were looking at train stations in Paris and south of the Paris, as well as the police, as potential targets, an unofficial source said.

More than a third of the almost 700 French citizens who have reached Iraq and Syria are women, according to government figures.

A figure who appears to be central to the case, Sarah H, 23, was arrested in Boussy-Saint-Antoine with Ines M and a third woman, Amel S, 39, a resident of the town. Another woman, arrested earlier in the week, was also in custody.

Security around Paris was visibly higher Friday as the investigation widened.

The teenager was shot and wounded during the arrests, and a police officer was stabbed in the stomach.

Authorities have arrested a total of five women and two men in connection with the plot.

President Francois Hollande, speaking on a visit to Athens, said: “A group has been destroyed” but warned: “There are others”.

Some travellers going through the station on Friday were resilient on hearing news of the arrests, including history teacher William Bouziges.

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In video shot by a neighbor, a veiled woman whose face was uncovered is seen being carried away by police as she cried out in Arabic: “God is great!”

Main suspect in France gas car probe swore allegiance to IS: legal source