Roundup: Three female suspects in connection with "imminent" attack arrested in France

French police arrested on Thursday evening three "radicalized and fanatical" women in Boussy Saint Antoine, southeast of Paris, connected to the gas cylinder probe and planned "violent" and "imminent" attack, French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said.

"An anti-terrorism operation led to the arrest of three women involved in the abandoned car containing gas cylinders...," Cazeneuve said.

The suspects aged 19, 23 and 39 were "likely preparing violent and imminent action," he added.

A police officer and one of the women were wounded during the operation, the minister said without elaborating.

According to media report, the injured woman, daughter of the owner of the suspicious car, tried to stab the police officer before she was shot by anti-terror units. The policeman suffered a knife wound but without life risk.

The 19-year-old woman is known to police for attempting to leave to Syria.

The car owner, who is on the intelligence services watchlist for radicalization, was taken into custody earlier this week but later released for lack of evidence. He had gone to police on Sunday to report that his daughter had disappeared with his car, officials said.

On Sunday, a grey Peugeot 607 contained seven gas cylinders, including an empty one on the passenger seat and three cans of diesel fuel, was found near the famous tourist place Notre-Dame cathedral in Paris. The vehicle, with no registration plates, was found park in a no-parking area with its hazard lights flashing and caught the attention of police.

Anti-terrorism units did not discover detonators in the car while they found documents written in Arabic.

A bar employee working near Notre Dame had first raised the alert on Sunday after noticing a gas cylinder in the back seat of the parked car, police said. Although the cylinder in the back seat was empty, six full cylinders were discovered inside the car.

Local media reported that though the police and security services have thwarted the potential terrorist attack, vulnerabilities in anti-terrorism remain.

Florence Berthout, mayor of Paris's Fifth Arrondissement, said the incident had highlighted the need to beef up security and put more police on patrol in one of the world's most visited cities.

She told BFM news channel the vehicle had been left in a zone where parking is strictly prohibited and had remained there for around two hours before it came to the attention of police.

Before the three women were arrested, four people -- two brothers and their girlfriends -- were already in custody over the discovery.

The first couple, 34-year-old man and a 29-year-old woman, were arrested on a motorway in southern France and are known to the security services for links to radical Islamists. The man's brother and his girlfriend, both aged 26, were arrested late Wednesday.

France has been on high alert since at least 130 people were killed by Islamist gunmen and suicide bombers in multiple attacks on Paris last November.

On July 14, at least 84 people were killed when a truck smashed into a crowd in the southern city of Nice during national day celebrations. Around half of the injured were in critical condition.

On July 26, two young men took six hostages in a church in northern France, later slaughtered a priest and seriously wounded another. They were shot dead by the police. The Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attack. Endi