Islamic State gas plot spurred by group of women, authorities say
PARIS — 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.
François 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.
“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 Islamic State group.
The women who spearheaded the failed plot included a 19-year-old whose father owned the abandoned Peugeot car.
Explosive gas canisters filled with nails were the weapon used in bomb attacks by Algerian extremists on Paris in the 1990s.