The authorities in France have arrested an 18-year-old from Chechnya. According to the French Interior Minister, he is said to have planned an “Islamist-motivated” attack on football events during the Olympic Games.
French security authorities say they have foiled plans to attack spectators and security forces during the Summer Olympics. An 18-year-old Chechen has been arrested for planning an Islamist-motivated attack on the Geoffroy Guichard football stadium in Saint-Etienne (Loire department), the Interior Ministry said on Friday. This is the “first foiled attack against the Olympic Games,” which begin on July 26.
The man, who was reportedly arrested on May 22, had planned to “attack spectators and police officers and die as a martyr,” the ministry’s statement continued. As the French anti-terrorism public prosecutor’s office (Pnat) also announced on Friday, an investigation for terrorist conspiracy was opened against the suspect on Sunday. The man was taken into custody.
He is accused of “committing a violent act in the name of the jihadist ideology of the Islamic State.” The attack plans were directed against “gatherings of supporters on the sidelines of sporting events” in Saint-Etienne, the Pnat said. Six football matches are to be played in the city, located southwest of Lyon, during the Summer Games.
The suspect was not known to the secret services, according to police sources. Last October, a 20-year-old jihadist from Chechnya killed a teacher in the northern French city of Arras. Three years earlier, a radicalized 18-year-old, also from the Caucasus republic, beheaded a teacher in a suburb northwest of Paris.
The Summer Olympics will take place from July 26 to August 11. Security authorities are particularly alarmed due to repeated attacks in France in recent years. According to authorities, a total of three attack plans have been thwarted since the beginning of the year.
At the end of March, the highest of three alert levels was again declared in France. The authorities reacted to the attack on the Crocus City Hill concert hall in a suburb of Moscow, which left more than 140 people dead and which the Islamic State claimed responsibility for.
Several attacks by jihadists have already been carried out in Paris, the worst on November 13, 2015, which left 130 people dead. There are also concerns that the war in Ukraine or the war in the Gaza Strip could lead to violent actions during the Olympic Games.