French police were hunting yesterday for possible accomplices to an Algerian whose plan to attack churches was foiled when his arsenal of weapons was uncovered purely by chance.
French Prime Minister Manuel Valls said the planned attack on one or more churches in the town of Villejuif just south of Paris was the fifth to be thwarted since a jihadist killing spree in the capital left 17 dead in January.
“The threat has never been as high. We have never had to face this kind of terrorism in our history,” Valls told France Inter radio.
Sid Ahmed Ghlam, 24, was arrested on Wednesday after police stumbled upon his plans when he called paramedics saying he had accidentally shot himself in the leg.
An arsenal of four Kalashnikov rifles, several handguns and bulletproof vests were discovered in his car and at his student apartment, as well as jihadist literature mentioning al-Qaeda and the Islamic State group. Detailed plans to carry out an attack were also found.
Police said his DNA was also linked to the murder of a young mother in Villejuif who was found shot dead in the passenger seat of her car on Sunday.
They are now trying to untangle the complex web of events and find who else may have been behind the attack, how did Ghlam shoot himself in the leg and why did he kill young mother Aurelie Chatelain?
Ghlam, an information technology student with no criminal record, had previously drawn the attention of French intelligence agents over his postings on social networks expressing his desire to join militants fighting in Syria.
However, a probe by intelligence services found nothing to go on, French Minister of the Interior Bernard Cazeneuve said.
The revelations about a planned attack that again escaped the radar of French intelligence services have highlighted the danger for France, which is often singled out by Muslim militants as a prime target.
The arrest comes some three months after Islamic extremists gunned down 12 people at the Charlie Hebdo magazine, a policewoman and four others at a Jewish supermarket in a three-day reign of terror in the French capital.
Investigators are now focusing on whether Ghlam was acting alone.
Analysis of his communications equipment indicated Ghlam “was in touch with another person who could be in Syria on how to carry out an attack, with the latter clearly asking him to target a church,” Paris prosecutor Francois Molins said.
“This type of individual does not act alone,” Valls said.
Several of Ghlam’s friends and family have been detained. However, his sister told reporters that her brother was not an extremist.
“My brother did not change. He was not radicalized. I am shocked by all that, we do not believe it,” she said.
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