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11:48, 03-Oct-2017
Terror probe, five arrests over homemade bomb in Paris: reports
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Five people have been arrested and a terror probe has been launched after a homemade explosive device was found in an upscale neighborhood in western Paris over the weekend, AFP news agency reported Monday citing sources close to the case.
French newspaper Le Point said the five men were arrested Monday evening in the towns of Arpajon and Draveil, on the outskirts of Paris.
The main suspect was apparently known to the authorities for his links with radical Islamist circles, Le Point reported, adding that investigators from the Paris anti-terror bureau and French internal security agency DGSI also conducted raids on Monday in connection with the case.
A resident alerted police on Saturday after he was woken by loud noises around 4:30 a.m. and found two gas cylinders in the entrance of his building near Porte d’Auteuil in the 16th district of Paris. Police then found two more cylinders outside the building as well as a mobile phone linked to them that appeared to be “an ignition device,” AFP said, quoting two sources close to the probe.
It was still unclear why the building may have been targeted.
France has been on high alert after a raft of terror attacks over the last two years which has left 239 people dead, beginning with the attacks on the Paris offices of satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo and a supermarket in January 2015.
In the latest incident on Sunday, a man stabbed two young women to death in the southern French city of Marseille. ISIL has claimed responsibility for the attack.
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