Foiled attack on Paris train station 'directed by IS'

The Paris prosecutor said on Friday (September 9) that individuals from so-called Islamic State in Syria directed three women arrested in connection with a car loaded with gas cylinders found near Notre Dame cathedral.

The French interior ministry said the women had been planning to attack a Paris railway station.

Three women arrested after a car loaded with gas cylinders was found near Notre Dame cathedral had been planning to attack a Paris railway station, the ministry said.

The Peugeot 607 was found early on Sunday laden with seven gas cylinders and three jerry cans of diesel, said police, although no detonators were discovered.

“A group has been neutralised. Others are out there,” French President Francois Hollande said on the sidelines of a summit of southern European states in Athens on Friday.

One of the women stabbed a police officer during her arrest before being shot and wounded, Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said late on Thursday.

“These three women aged 39, 23 and 19 had been radicalised, were fanatics and were in all likelihood preparing an imminent, violent act,” Cazeneuve said in a televised statement.

TV footage showed a policeman leaving the scene of the arrests in the Boussy-Saint-Antoine suburb, some 30 km southeast of Paris, carrying a large knife.

SOURCE: euronews