Foreign Affairs

French Police Say They Stopped Two ‘Very Determined’ Terrorists

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French authorities say they have foiled a terrorist plot less than a week after a deadly stabbing attack in Paris.

Police have charged at least one Egyptian-born man with plotting an act of terrorism, and have arrested another man on similar charges, the London Telegraph reported.

French Interior Minister Gerard Collomb said in a TV interview that the two were arrested for “preparing to commit an attack, with either explosives or ricin,” a potent and deadly poison.

Authorities were able to track the two men on popular messaging platform Telegram. “We’re following a number of people on [social] networks,” Collomb said, according to The Associated Press. “We were able to trace them, identify this plot and stop them.”

The man charged possessed “instructions on how to build ricin-based poisons,” Collomb said and a source in the judicial system told The Telegraph that the illegal immigrant was “particularly active account in the pro-jihadist sphere.”

The source also said the suspect “spontaneously acknowledged having consulted jihadist propaganda” during questioning, and explained that another, unidentified person on Telegram “told him to buy the stock of bangers to make a bomb and to take action in France,” the source said.

The suspect “sought to play down the seriousness of his acts,” but law enforcement analysis “revealed that in reality he had accept[ed] to undertake this mission and that he was also ready to die a martyr by blowing himself up,” the source said.

The suspect was “very determined,” according to the source.

The 20-year-old Chechen suspect charged with going on a stabbing rampage Saturday was reportedly on France’s “S file” of people police suspect have been radicalized and may pose a terrorism risk.

One man died in the attack, and four more were wounded, according to authorities.

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