Suspect in foiled France terror plot charged

France has charged the main suspect in a foiled attack plot with membership of a terrorist organisation after police found an arsenal of weapons and explosives at his home

Paris: France has charged the main suspect in a foiled attack plot with membership of a terrorist organisation after police found an arsenal of weapons and explosives at his home.

Reda Kriket. Pic/French Police

French national Reda Kriket, 34, was arrested near Paris last week and a police raid on his apartment netted a cache of assault rifles, handguns and TATP, the highly volatile homemade explosive favoured by Islamic State (IS) jihadists.

State prosecutor Francois Molins said yesterday that “no specific target” had been identified for the foiled attack, but the cache of weapons showed an imminent act of “extreme violence” had likely been prevented.

Kriket’s arrest came just four months after jihadists killed 130 people in the French capital. Investigators have been stepping up efforts to smash a tangled web of IS-linked extremists blamed for both the November Paris attacks and last week’s suicide bombings on Brussels airport and metro that killed 32 people.

Another French suspect, Anis Bahri, was arrested in Rotterdam in the Netherlands on Sunday in connection with the foiled Paris plot and is fighting extradition to France. Both Kriket and Bahri are believed to have travelled to Syria in late 2014 or early 2015, and since then between France, Belgium and the Netherlands, the French prosecutor said.

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