Foiled Paris terror plot 'was being directed from abroad'

Source: THELOCAL France

Public prosecutor Francois Molins said police had found automatic weapons and evidence of allegiances to the ISIS group, after raids in Strasbourg and Marseille, and the group was planning to strike in the Paris area on December 1st.

But Molins confirmed that the police investigation had proved that the terror cell was being given directions from the Middle East region covering Iraq and Syria which were controlled by Isis forces.

"It appears that the Strasbourg cell and the individual held in Marseille had joint instructions for how to get arms, instructions given by an commander.

Out of the seven suspects initially arrested, two were released, but five - four French nationals and one Moroccan - will be presented to a judge on Friday where they are expected to be charged for terrorism offences.

Read more: http://www.thelocal.fr/20161125/foiled-paris-terror-plot-was-directed-from-abroad

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more detail from a good Canadian News story link below

The five men, he said, "had common instructions to obtain weapons, instructions given by a person from the Iraqi-Syrian zone through encrypted applications popular among terrorists." The four arrested in Strasbourg were two French citizens both aged 37, a 36-year-old Franco-Tunisian and a 35-year-old Franco-Moroccan. Two of them had been convicted several times in France. The man arrested in Marseille was a 46-year-old Moroccan. All were detained after a "long-term" investigation by French intelligence services.

Four long-time friends

The four Strasbourg suspects are long-time friends, seeing each other regularly, "all four communicating in a closed network through a dedicated telephone line," Molins said. But they weren't in touch with the Marseille suspect.After being held in custody for five days, the five were moved at midday to the Paris courthouse and were to be presented later Friday to counterterrorism judges. The Paris prosecutor asked magistrates to hand the five preliminary charges of taking part in a "terrorist criminal association" and to jail them. The suspects were in possession or in search of weapons and financing, Molins said. Among weapons seized during home searches in Strasbourg were two handguns, two automatic rifles, several cartridge clips and dozens of cartridges of different calibres.

On the USB key, investigators also found instructions for a money handover and detailed explanations to obtain weapons and ammunition. A notebook containing manuscript inscriptions explicitly referred, over 12 pages, to the armed jihad, death in martyrdom while some excerpts openly mentioned Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the Islamic State group leader, the prosecutor said.

Two of the Strasbourg suspects travelled to the Turkish-Syrian border via Cyprus in March 2015, he said. The Marseille Moroccan suspect left his home country in 2013 and made multiple trips across Europe with fake identification. In 2015, the Turkish authorities prevented him entering Turkey.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/france-arrests-isis-1.3867227