Five men arrested in France for planning an attack in the Paris area were directed from the Islamic State group's heartland, a prosecutor said on Friday. Over last weekend police had arrested seven men and seized weapons in raids in the cities of Strasbourg and Marseille.
Two of the suspects were later released but the other five - four Frenchmen and a Moroccan - appeared before anti-terrorism judges on Friday, public prosecutor Francois Molins told a press conference. "The break-up of this network has protected us against a large-scale attack," said President Francois Hollande.
France has been under a state of emergency since January 2015 when Islamist extremists carried out the first of three large-scale attacks in the country that have left 238 people dead. Molins said items seized in Strasbourg included written documents showing "clear allegiance" to IS and "glorifying death and martyrdom".
"The Strasbourg commando unit, but also the individual arrested in Marseille, were in possession of common instructions... sent by a co-ordinator from the Iraqi-Syrian region via encrypted applications," he said. Investigators established that the Strasbourg cell was planning an attack on December 1 on one of a number of possible targets, although Molins admitted authorities have so far been "unable to determine the exact one". A police source said on Thursday that the cell's members researched "a dozen sites" online including the Christmas market on the Champs-Elysees, the Disneyland Paris theme park, cafe terraces in the northeast of the capital, the Paris police headquarters and a metro station.
The suspects were "in possession of or in search of weapons and financing" and were "looking for targets," Molins said. Authorities in Portugal had been aware of the Moroccan, aged 46, who was arrested in Marseille, because of his possible radicalisation while living in the country.