A 22-year-old engineering student and his 20-year-old brother have been arrested in France over a “deadly and antisemitic” plot, prosecutors said on Sunday.
French authorities last week arrested the two, with dual Moroccan and Italian citizenship, on suspicion of planning antisemitic terrorist attacks, French media reported on Sunday, citing information received from counterterrorism prosecutors.
Police arrested the two near a prison in northern France, while the suspects were operating a drone outside the facility, Radio France Internationale (RFI) reported. RFI quoted sources at the national anti-terror prosecutor’s office (PNAT). The older brother had graduated as an engineer, and his younger sibling was unemployed.
The brothers, identified only as Elyasse H and Moad H, were operating the drone from inside a car in the northern town of Longuenesse, the report said. Officers found a semi-automatic weapon, a bottle of hydrochloric acid, aluminium foil and a flag of the Islamic State terrorist group stretched across the headrest of the driver’s seat, according to RFI report.
While in police custody, the brothers admitted that “they had been planning a terror attack in France for which they aspired to martyrdom,” the PNAT stated, according to the report.
They were planning “a terror plot whose deadly and antisemitic nature appears to be established,” the statement continued, without providing further detail.
Moad H. made a video earlier this month pledging allegiance to ISIS, according to the report.
“Exchanges with various contacts via encrypted messaging services in the days and weeks leading up to their arrests, aimed in particular at sourcing handguns or assault rifles, suggest that a violent act was imminent,” it added.
The brothers arrived in France with their parents in 2017, according to RFI.
