(AhlulBayt News Agency) - Seven men have been arrested including four in eastern France's Strasbourg during a raid by anti-terror police. The government says the arrests mean another terror plot has been foiled.
Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve told a televised news conference that he weekend arrests of seven suspects -- of French, Moroccan and Afghan origin -- "enabled us to prevent a long-planned terror attack on our soil."
He said an investigation would show whether "the foiled attack was a coordinated attack aiming to target several sites simultaneously on our soil."
The men were arrested on Saturday night in Strasbourg and Marseille after an investigation by France's DGSI domestic intelligence service.
"Credible information made these arrests necessary," one security source said earlier, asking not to be named because they were not authorised to speak on the case.
Cazeneuve linked the arrests to raids carried out shortly before the Euro 2016 football championship hosted by France in June.
The men were still in police custody on Sunday night, according to reports.
The men were awaiting the delivery of weapons, reported Le Parisien newspaper, while iTele reported that the men were already in possession of a sub-machine gun.
The police made the raid at 3am in the Meinau and Neuhof neighbourhoods.
Another three men with connections to the case were arrested in Marseille over the weekend.
While the intentions of the arrested men remain unclear, several French channels pointed to the idea that a potential target could have been the Strasbourg Christmas markets, which are scheduled to begin in just days.
The event, which saw boosted security checks after last year's November attacks in Paris, typically draws enormous crowds.
The same market was reportedly the target of a bombing plot back in the year 2000.
France remains on edge since the November attacks in Paris last year when 130 people were killed. The country is still under a state of emergency.
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21 November 2016 - 12:22
News ID: 793264
Seven men have been arrested including four in eastern France's Strasbourg during a raid by anti-terror police. The government says the arrests mean another terror plot has been foiled.
