French police stopped an apparent bomb attack outside a US bank in Paris early Saturday when they arrested a person about to set off a homemade explosive device, officials and sources close to the case told AFP.
The incident occurred around 3:30 am (0130 GMT) in front of a Bank of America building in the chic 8th arrondissement, a couple of streets from the Champs-Elysees.
Police grabbed the suspect just after he placed a device, made of five litres of liquid (1.3 US gallons), believed to be fuel, and an ignition system, one of the sources said.
After his arrest, the suspect claimed to both a minor and a Senegalese citizen, according to a police source, who cautioned that the authorities were still verifying his identity.
He was accompanied by a second person, who took flight when officers arrived to arrest the pair.
The ignition component had 650 grams (23 ounces) of explosive powder in it, according to an initial assessment. The whole device was taken to the Paris police’s forensics lab for full analysis.
France’s counter-terrorism prosecutor’s office told AFP it had immediately taken over the investigation, and confirmed the suspect caught was in police custody.
It said the probe it has launched was into “attempted damage by fire or other dangerous means in connection with a terrorist undertaking” and a “terrorist criminal conspiracy”.
Both the Paris judicial police and France’s domestic intelligence service, the General Directorate for Internal Security (DGSI), were involved in the probe, the office told AFP.
Allegedly recruited for 600 euros
According to a police source, the suspect said he had been recruited via the Snapchat app to carry out the bombing in exchange for the sum of 600 euros ($692).
When the patrolling officers arrested him, he was about to ignite the device with a lighter.
A separate police source told AFP that while he was placing the charge, the accomplice stepped back, apparently to take a photo or video of the crime with his mobile phone.
A spokesperson for Bank of America, whose US headquarters is in Charlotte, North Carolina, told AFP that they were aware of the situation and were in communication with the French authorities.
France’s interior minister, Laurent Nunez, on X hailed the speedy action by the police officers, given “the current international situation”.
Since the outbreak of the war of the Middle East, European countries have been on high alert for potential attacks on Iranian dissidents, Jewish places of worship and US-Israeli assets.
Another source close to the case told AFP that the foiled plot appeared to be “the concretisation of the Iranian threat towards American and Israeli interests everywhere in Europe”.
Nunez said that, in France, “vigilance remains more than ever at a high level”.