Three women behind a thwarted attack near Notre Dame Cathedral were radicalized by Islamic State commanders in Syria, and one had been engaged to an extremist who killed a priest in July, the Paris prosecutor said Friday.
Francois Molins spoke a day after three women were dramatically arrested over the failed attack that centered on a car discovered Sunday morning in central Paris abandoned and loaded with gas canisters. No detonators were found in the car.
“In the last few days and hours a terrorist cell was dismantled, composed of young women totally receptive to the deadly Daesh ideology,” Molins said, using another term for the IS group.
The women who spearheaded the failed plot included a 19-year-old whose father owned the abandoned Peugeot car. Her written pledge of allegiance to the Islamic State group was found by police, a security official said Friday.
The teen, Ines Madani, stabbed a police officer with a knife and was shot in the leg Thursday evening in a raid south of Paris, police said. She was being treated in a hospital. – READ MORE
