Girl, 16, among 4 held as police foil ‘imminent attack’ in France
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ANTITERRORIST police yesterday arrested four people, including a 16-year-old girl, in southern France suspected of preparing what the interior minister said was an “imminent” attack.
The arrests in Montpellier and the small nearby town of Marseillan “foiled a plot to carry out an imminent attack on French soil,” Bruno Le Roux said in a statement.
A police source said the four were arrested after buying acetone, a highly flammable liquid that can be used to make bombs.
The other suspects were all men, aged 20, 26 and 33, the source said.
“It seems that they intended to go through with it and to make several explosive devices.”
Searches turned up small amounts of TATP, the homemade explosive used by Islamic State jihadists in attacks on Paris and Brussels, the source said.
The girl had used social media to try to find ways of traveling to Syria to join up with jihadists, the same source said.
The 20-year-old man had been her mentor and had been under surveillance, the source added, and he had been planning “to blow himself up.”
France remains on high alert after a wave of attacks that began two years ago, claiming more than 200 lives.
Last week, a soldier shot and wounded a machete-wielding attacker who lunged at him outside the Louvre museum in Paris while shouting “Allahu Akbar” (God is greatest).
Investigators have identified the 29-year-old Egyptian and are trying to establish whether he had any links to a jihadist group.
Le Roux has said that French authorities have foiled “no fewer than 13 plots involving more than 30 individuals,” including women and minors, since the Bastille Day truck massacre in the Riviera city of Nice last July that claimed 86 lives.
Prime Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said yesterday that hundreds of arrests have been made since the start of 2016.
“These individuals were either preparing to carry out attacks or were linked to terrorist groups ordering attacks,” Cazeneuve said during a visit to La Souterraine in central France.
“We face an extremely high terrorist threat that requires us to take measures to assure the protection of our citizens at all times,” he said.
Three female jihadists were arrested in September after the discovery of gas cylinders in a car near Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. In November, police broke up a terror ring plotting an attack in France, jailing four Frenchmen and a Moroccan who had pledged allegiance to the Islamic State group.
France, one of the most active members of the US-led coalition fighting the Sunni extremist group, has been the worst hit among European countries targeted by attacks claimed or inspired by IS.
Parliament voted in December to extend a national state of emergency until July 15, after this year’s presidential and parliamentary elections.
It was the fifth extension of the state of emergency, which gives police extended powers of search and arrest.
Security and fears about Islamic extremism are key issues ahead of the two-round presidential election in April and May.
Last year, France attracted almost 83 million foreign visitors, maintaining its rank as the world’s top tourist destination despite the attacks, its foreign minister said yesterday.
But the figure fell short of the record 85 million who visited in 2015, and Jean-Marc Ayrault warned that “a great deal of work remains to be done to ensure France remains a global destination.”
“France has suffered as a destination,” Ayrault said.
Tourist numbers in Paris have especially declined.
Three years ago, French tourism chiefs set a target of attracting 100 million visitors a year by 2020.
But France has been repeatedly targeted by jihadists since the January 2015 massacre at the Charlie Hebdo satirical weekly in Paris.
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