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French Authorities Foil ISIS-Directed Christmas Terror Plot Against Disneyland

Alain Jocard/AFP/Getty Images.

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Jonah Bennett Contributor
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Paris prosecutor Francois Molins confirmed Friday that five men arrested last week in connection with planning a terror plot against Disneyland Paris and police headquarters were receiving direct orders from the Islamic State.

The five men, arrested last Sunday in Strasbourg and Marseille, were looking to strike on Dec. 1, Reuters reports.

Molins stated the men received direction from an ISIS member abroad via “encrypted applications popular among terrorists.” French counter-intelligence had apparently been spying on the group for about eight months before moving in for arrests, after which point police extracted information on the attack plans from a smartphone.

Just before the arrests, the men downloaded the Periscope app, suggesting a possible plan to livestream the attack they intended to carry out.

Authorities also found documents in a Strasbourg house pledging allegiance to ISIS and its leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. Out of the five men arrested, two had traveled to the Turkey-Syria border in 2015. There was also an “arsenal of weapons” found after the Strasbourg raid.

Friday’s announcement has rapidly raised tensions at a time when France is headed into a presidential election, which comes to a conclusion next May.

France still remains under a state of emergency imposed following the devastating Paris terror attack in November 2015, which left 130 innocent people dead. The terror attack in July in Nice is still fresh in people’s memories.

Prime Minister Manuel Valls said earlier in November that the state of emergency would likely be extended further.

French authorities are monitoring about 15,000 people on the road to radicalization, according to a statement made by Valls in September.

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