Four people suspected of being “radical Islamists” have been detained in a terrorist investigation stemming from the discovery of a vehicle parked next to Paris’ Notre Dame Cathedral with six gas canisters inside.
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Police in Paris discovered seven gas canisters in a auto parked outside Notre Dame cathedral, and arrested the car’s owner and another man.
The sources said another person, who is known to the French security services like the owner of the auto, was also taken into police custody.
Anti-terror investigators are probing the incident, which comes with France on high alert following a string of jihadist attacks, including last November’s coordinated bloodshed in which Islamic State extremists killed 130 people.
Two people were arrested in southern France on Tuesday (September 7) in southern France after a auto parked near Notre Dame Cathedral was found with several gas canisters inside over the weekend.
French police said that the vehicle had no registration plates and it was found with its hazard lights flashing.
No detonators were found, police said.
But Le Parisien, the capital’s daily reported that six people are now being held.
He said five full canisters were in the boot of the Peugeot, and an empty one was on the back seat.
Notre Dame, a Gothic cathedral, is one of the city’s key landmarks, attracting 13 million visitors each year. After a nun managed to escape the church and alert authorities, Paris police arrived on scene and opened fire on the men, who did not survive.
Bernard Cazeneuve, the interior minister, said in recent days that French security services had arrested seven terror suspects in the month of August, including three that were in the process of planning an attack.
She said the vehicle was left in a zone where parking is strictly prohibited and that it had remained there for around two hours before it came to the attention of police.
French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said it is not clear why the auto was abandoned.
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“We risk being confronted with a new form of attack: a terrorist campaign characterised by placing explosive devices in places where large crowds are gathered, and multiplying this type of action to create a climate of panic”. ISIL said the driver, Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel, was one of its followers.
