The failed attack near Notre Dame Cathedral was spearheaded by a group of women that included a 19-year-old whose written pledge of allegiance to the Islamic State group was found by police, a security official said Friday.
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One of the women arrested over a foiled terror attack in Paris had been engaged to a man who slit a priest’s throat, it has emerged.
The three women are accused of planning to attack a railway station in Paris this week. “She was previously betrothed to Larossi Abballa, the man responsible for the attack in Magnanville, and Adel Kermiche, who was behind the attack in Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray”.
Mr Molins said the suspects were guided by Islamic State (IS) commanders in Syria. Police found a blanket with traces of fuel and a cigarette butt in the vehicle, a Peugeot 607 sedan, he said. She was shot in the leg as she lunged at a police officer with a knife – after another woman, Sarah H., 23, attacked and wounded a plain clothes officer with a kitchen knife through the open window of his auto, Molins said on Friday. The women, aged 19, 23 and 39, were also linked to a recent planned attack at the Notre Dame cathedral last weekend after they left a auto packed with gas cylinders near the French landmark.
“You have to understand, if women are taking action it’s certainly because too few men will take action”, he wrote, seemingly referring to the youngest in the female cell, a 19-year-old who was identified through her father’s abandoned vehicle. As the three women tried to flee, Ines M also lunged at an officer with a knife, he said, and the officer shot her in the leg. Video footage of the Paris raid showed a veiled woman being carried off by police while shouting “Allahu Akbar” which means “God is the greatest”. She is being treated in hospital.
The wounded officer’s injuries are not life-threatening.
Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said that police had arrested 293 people in 2016, all of whom had established links to terrorist networks. “Others are out there”, French President Francois Hollande said on the sidelines of a summit of southern European states in Athens on Friday. “Information we were able to get from our intelligence services allowed us to act before it was too late”. He had gone to police on Sunday to report that his daughter had disappeared with his auto, officials said.
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In all, five women and two men, one with ties to Abballa, have been arrested in connection with the plot.
