By Hajer M’tiri
PARIS (AA) – Three women were arrested Thursday night in connection with a car containing six gas cylinders found in Paris, near the Notre Dame cathedral, over the weekend, according to police.
The new arrests bring the total number of suspects in police custody to seven.
“These three women aged 39, 23 and 19 had been radicalized, were fanatics and were in all likelihood preparing an imminent, violent act,” Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said late on Thursday in a televised statement.
They were arrested in Boussy-Saint-Antoine, south of Paris.
One of the women had stabbed a police officer during the arrest before being shot and wounded. French broadcaster BFMTV said the attacker was the missing 19-year-old daughter of the car’s owner who was released on Tuesday night.
She is believed to be the last one to drive the car and park it where it was found.
Earlier on Thursday, four people — aged between 26 and 34 — had been taken into custody: a couple arrested on Wednesday evening near Montargis, about 110 kilometers (68 miles) south of Paris and two others arrested on a motorway on Tuesday in southern France.
The four were reportedly known to the French intelligence services.
French daily Le Figaro reported on Wednesday the car — with registration plates missing and its hazard lights flashing — was parked at Quai de Montebello, in the capital’s fifth arrondissement, just a few meters from the iconic cathedral on Paris’ Ile de la Cite by the Seine river.
The abandoned vehicle, a Peugeot 607, contained at least six gas cylinders, one of them empty and placed on the front passenger seat.
“The cylinders were not connected to any kind of detonator,” the newspaper quoted unnamed police officials as saying.
France Info radio said police also found several diesel fuel cans in the trunk.
French anti-terrorism police have launched an investigation. Paris chief prosecutor Francois Molins will give a news conference at 5:30 p.m. local time (1530 GMT) on Friday.
France is on high alert after a series of terrorist attacks which targeted the country since January of last year, killing hundreds of people. A state of emergency was introduced last November and was extended this July.
