French anti-terrorist police arrest four on suspicion of planning ‘imminent’ attack

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A woman walks in front of an apartment building in Clapiers where suspects believed to be involved in plotting an attack were arrested by French anti-terrorist police. Photo: AFP

Published: 8:57pm, 10 Feb 2017Updated: 10:40pm, 10 Feb 2017

French anti-terrorist police on Friday arrested four people in southern France on suspicion of preparing what Interior Minister Bruno Le Roux said was an “imminent” attack.

It seems that they intended to go through with it and to make several explosive device

Interior Minister Bruno Le Roux

The arrests in Montpellier and the nearby town of Marseillan “foiled a plot to carry out an imminent attack on French soil”, Le Roux said in a statement. A police source said the four – who included a 16-year-old girl – 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.”

The teenager had used social media to try to find ways of travelling to Syria to join up with jihadists, the source said, adding that the 20-year-old had been her mentor and was under surveillance.

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 great]”.

Investigators have identified the man as an Egyptian and are trying to establish whether he had any link to a jihadist group.

A journalist films the debris of an explosion after French anti-terrorist police raided an apartment in Clapiers, near Montpellier. Photo: AFP

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