A judge on Saturday handed preliminary charges to a 29-year-old woman whom authorities suspect is part of a female “terrorist commando” in the service of the Islamic State (IS) group — one of five suspects in an aborted attack near Notre Dame Cathedral and another possible attack thwarted by police.
The discovery of an abandoned car early on Sunday last week led investigators to the arrests of three more women and a man that revealed links to two attacks this year in France claimed by the Islamic State group and underscored the overlapping nature of the terrorist web.
France, which is in a state of emergency, has been on tenterhooks with three attacks this year, including a truck attack in Nice on Bastille Day.
An abandoned car found near Notre Dame with its license plates removed, its hazard lights mysteriously flashing and loaded with gas canisters set a frantic search in motion.
A woman identified by authorities as Ornella G, was the first to be arrested, on Tuesday with a companion at a highway stop near the southern city of Orange.
Her companion was freed, the prosecutor’s office said Saturday.
However, Paris prosecutor Francois Molins on Friday said that Ornella G’s fingerprints were found inside the car.
She was known to intelligence agents as someone who was looking to go to Syria.
The judge charged Ornella G. with association with terrorists to commit attacks and attempted murder in an organized group linked to a terrorist enterprise and ordered her jailed, the prosecutor’s office said.
Molins said the investigation has led to the dismantling of a “terrorist commando of young women” aligned with the Islamic State group.
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