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Three female suspects connected to foiled Paris cathedral attack appear before judge

Xinhua, September 13, 2016 Adjust font size:

Three women appeared on Monday before French magistrates after investigation showed that they were involved in the foiled attack near Notre Dame cathedral in Paris, according to local report.

Anti-terrorist judges could charge the three suspects with links with terrorist cells, the news channel Itele said.

The three women, aged 19, 23 and 39 years old, planned an attack in the French capital using a car loaded with gas cylinders and cans of diesel fuel.

They were arrested last Thursday in Boussy Saint Antoine, southeast of Paris.

"They were guided by individuals in Syria in the ranks of Islamic State ... that intends to use women as combatants ... This commando's objective was clearly to carry out an attack," Francosi Molins, the Paris prosecutor said.

Molins said the youngest of the three women, and also the daughter of the car owner, had written a letter pledging allegiance to the IS group and saying she had rallied to the call to punish France for its attacks on Muslim.

She was shot and wounded during the raid as she stabbed a police officer.

Another female suspect, arrested in southern France on Saturday, was charged with association with a terrorist group and attempted murder by an organised group.

On Sept. 4, a Peugeot 607 containing seven gas cylinders, including an empty one on the front passenger seat, and three cans of diesel fuel was found near the famous tourist place Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris. Anti-terrorism units did not discover detonators in the car.

In a recent interview, Molins warned that retreat of the IS in Iraq and Syria would increase risks of terrorist attacks.

Speaking to the local broadcaster Europe 1 on Sunday, French Prime Minister Manuel Valls also rang the alarm of high terror alert, saying there were 15,000 people on the radar of intelligent services who were in the process of being radicalized.

"There will be new attacks, there will be innocent victims ... this is also my role to tell this truth to the French people," Valls said. Endit