Three young Islamist women have been arrested in France on suspicion of plotting terror attacks in Paris to pay “homage to Bin Laden” and to mark the 2015 Bataclan theatre attack.
France’s National Anti-Terrorist Prosecutor’s Office (PNAT) has charged three women, aged 18, 19, and 21, with a “criminal terrorist conspiracy” following a months-long investigation involving wiretaps and other surveillance, which uncovered plans for a potential suicide attack in Paris.
According to a report from Le Parisien, citing surveillance summaries from the General Directorate for Internal Security (DGSI), the three young women all identified with the Salafist hardline branch of Islam, which calls for a strict and literal adherence to the Qur’an, Sharia law, and often promotes the idea of militant jihadism to advance the faith.
The DGSI found that the three women rarely left their homes and would only do so while completely covering their faces with a niqab. Instead, the three suspects are said to have spent the majority of their time inside, watching Islamist propaganda videos on platforms such as Snapchat, Telegram, and TikTok.
They were further described as being solitary with suicidal tendencies, while one is reported to have suffered a rare spinal injury that left her bound to a wheelchair. They are all said to be French nationals; however, no further details about their ethnic backgrounds have been made public.
The 19-year-old suspect, only identified in the Paris press as “B.” due to French judicial reporting restrictions, is believed to have been the ringleader of the suspected terror ring. She first drew the attention of authorities with her TikTok account, which she reportedly used to promote pro-ISIS, jihadist-themed content to her 20,000 followers.
In one instance, she is said to have proclaimed that she was ready to carry out “an operation with another sister (Muslim woman)” and had said that she was in search of “equipment” and training to either attack a concert hall or bar in Paris with guns or an explosive suicide vest.
In another instance, she reportedly told one of the other suspects in an intercepted phone conversation, supposedly in jest, “I want to blow everything up there… I want to pay homage to Bin Laden!”
According to the authorities, the plan was to kill as many people as possible and for her to become a martyr. Investigators noted that it bore resemblance to the November 2015 terror attacks in Paris, in which suicide bombers and gunmen targeted a stadium, restaurants, bars, and the Bataclan concert hall in a coordinated attack, leaving 130 dead and hundreds injured.
The attackers were later identified as mostly French and Belgian nationals of North African heritage, some of whom had received training from ISIS in Syria. The attack, which was the deadliest terrorist attack in French history and the deadliest incident on French soil since the Second World War, may have served as an inspiration to the alleged suspects, given that its tenth anniversary is set for this week.
During a search of the alleged leader of the female Islamist group, police discovered a notebook, reportedly outlining various elements of a terror plot in Paris, including potential targets, as well as the ingredients needed to manufacture a suicide vest and the cost of a Kalashnikov, the same gun used to mow down innocent concert goers in 2015 at the Bataclan.
In a police interview, she said that she wanted to “live under Sharia law” and that she “preferred religious laws” to the secular laws of the French Republic. “B.”, who reportedly pledged allegiance to ISIS, also said that in her envisioned terror plot, she would attack a police officer to be gunned down and become a martyr. However, she went on to claim that she had abandoned the plans, saying that she was “impulsive” and “incapable of following through.”
The wheelchair-bound 21-year-old suspect, identified as “K.”, who is reported to have pledged allegiance to “B.”, said that she knew of the plot, but had attempted to persuade the ringleader to leave the country and move to Algeria rather than carrying out a terror attack in France. Both “B.” and “K.” are said to have told police that the third suspect, known as “A.”, was not aware of the plot.
The three women have been remanded to custody while they await trial.
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