France foils terror plot to decapitate army officer

From the French edition of The Local

A plot to behead a high ranking member of the French military and post a video of the decapitation on the web has been foiled, it was revealed this week. The French government said four young men have been taken into custody. Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve told reporters that four accused who had been planning “a terrorist act against French military facilities” were in custody of the country’s intelligence services, the DGSI.

Aged 16 to 23 and including a former member of the navy, they were arrested at dawn in different parts of the country, the minister said.

The news of the arrests followed a statement from President Francois Hollande, who said attacks had been thwarted in recent days. “This week, we stopped terrorist attacks which could have taken place,” Hollande said on a visit to the coastal city of Marseille.

Cazeneuve said no link had been established between the foiled assault and two blasts on Tuesday at a petrochemical plant near Marseille.

A source close to the investigation into the thwarted attack, who asked to remain anonymous, said the four people arrested had been planning to film the decapitation of high ranking member of the military. One of four suspects, who was identified as the mastermind, had been planning to travel to jihadist-controlled areas of war-torn Syria, Cazeneuve said.

Earlier, a security source had told AFP that four suspects with an “Islamist profile” had been arrested on suspicion of planning an attack somewhere in France without giving further details.

As more details slipped out on Thursday it emerged that they were planning to target the Fort Bear military base at Port-Vendres, near the city of Perpignan in the south west. The location was apparently chosen because of its symbolism. Fort Bear is one of the training centres for France’s special commando forces who take part in foreign missions such as the French intervention in Mali and Central African Republic.

Sources close to the investigation have told French media that they planned to kidnap and then behead a high-ranking member of the military on January 7th 2016, to mark a year since the terror attacks in Paris. The horrific decapitation was to be filmed on a go-pro camera and the video uploaded to the internet for all to see.

Who are the suspects:

Four young men were arrested on Monday after dawn raids were carried out in various parts of France. The youngest of them was aged just 16. He was later released on Thursday morning when the time limits for keeping him in custody ran out. The others were aged 17, 19 and 23 years old. According to the three other suspects the 16-year-old was eventually sidelined from the plot because they deemed him too young.

All the suspects were described as “radicalised Muslims”.

The 23-year-old, considered one of the leaders of the group, is believed to be an ex-member of the French navy. He was apparently kicked out of France’s national marines at the beginning of the year for apparent bad behaviour. He had been based at the Fort Bear base and it was former commanding officer that they apparently wanted to target.

According to reports he liked to be known as “the Emir”.

According to France’s Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve the 17-year-old member of the group came on the radar of French intelligence services after expressing his desire to go and fight in Syria. They became aware of him because it became clear he had been radicalised as he was active on social network sites and had been in contact with French jihadists who are now in prison.

According to French police sources quoted by BFM TV, this suspect had already been questioned by France’s counter-terrorist police at the DGSI back in the autumn of 2014. Authorities didn’t have enough evidence to file charges against him but instead placed him under surveillance by wiretapping his phone. This led investigators to the other suspects.