French security forces have thwarted two Islamic terror attacks since January.
By: AP and World Israel News Staff
France’s interior minister says two potential terror attacks have been thwarted in France since January.
Minister Gerald Collomb said Sunday on CNews television that one attack was targeting a major sports center, and the other was aimed at French soldiers. He said both plots were “not totally finalized,” but did not elaborate.
Collomb said several suspects in the cases have been arrested and jailed. They were known by authorities as “radicalized” Muslims, he added.
The French government on Friday unveiled a wide-ranging new program to counter Islamic radicalization, as French Islamic State (ISIS) Jihadis return from the battlefields of Syria and Iraq and the watch list of people showing risk signs grows.
The plan, made up of 60 measures, puts the accent on prevention, notably aimed at trying to catch danger signals within society.
Some 240 people have been killed in Muslim terror attacks in France since 2015, more than in the past 100 years. The most deadly attack occurred in November 2015 at the Stade de France and the Bataclan theatre in Paris. Attacks by suicide bombers and shooters, in coordinated attacks on cafes, bars, a rock concert and a stadium in Paris, left 130 people dead.
Most of the terrorists were killed, but some suspects are still on the run. The coordinator of the attacks, Abdelhamid Abaaoud, 27, died along with his female cousin in a police raid in the Paris suburb of Saint-Denis days later.