Four people suspected of preparing a terrorist attack arrested in Montpellier – Le Figaro

VIDEO – According to the Interior minister, Bruno Le Roux, the sweep occurred on Friday morning “helped to foil on a project of imminent bombing on the French soil”.

They have been “picked up” in the morning by the police officers of the Sub-Directorate terrorism (SDAT). Four individuals were arrested Friday in the Hérault, Montpellier, Hutches and Marseillan. They are believed to have wanted to prepare a terrorist attack in France. The operation enabled “to defeat a project of imminent bombing on the French soil”, welcomes the Interior minister, Bruno Le Roux. “Three (people) are directly suspected of preparing a violent action on our territory,” said the minister in a press release. “But no one knows where or how at this point,” advance with caution a source close to the folder, contacted by Le Figaro. The group imagined to perpetrate a suicide explosive belt in a tourist site in paris, provides his side of the M6.

Seventy grams of TATP, unn a very powerful explosive, were found in an apartment in Hutches. photo Credits : SYLVAIN THOMAS/AFP

The suspects: a 16 year-old girl and three men aged 20, 26 and 33 years old. Many would have been identified on the social networks, in particular via the e-mail encrypted Telegram, which are prized by the jihadists. The older man was already known for its radicalization. The youngest, born in 1996, was known by police to have expressed his willingness to leave to a combat zone. Just as the teenager, who reportedly expressed his desire to leave in a zone of the syro-iraqi, if not hit France. This young girl had released a video in which it pledges allegiance to the islamic State, on 8 February, on social networks, according to a source close to the investigation to the AFP.

” Read also – the different faces of the radicalization

According to our information, the security forces have taken control of 70 grams of TATP in Hutches. Have also been found in one liter of acetone, the same amount of hydrogen peroxide and sulfuric acid, all ingredients necessary to the manufacture of this explosive craft. This would be the purchase of these chemicals that precipitated the investigation, after two weeks of investigation. Computer equipment was also seized during the searches. According to the first elements of the investigation, the 20 year old man planned to “blow themselves up”, specified to the AFP a police source. The investigators thus work on the assumption that the young man and the teenager were to get married before the attack.

“We are facing a threat extremely high”, recalls his side the prime minister, Bernard Cazeneuve, at the turn of a displacement in the Hollow a week after the attack at the Louvre. Placed under the regime of a state of emergency until after the next presidential elections, France has been hit by a wave of attacks that have been 238 deaths since 2015.