An Islamist terrorist bomb plot was foiled in Paris on Saturday, French police has revealed today, after an improvised explosive device was found near the grounds of of Paris Saint-Germain football club.
The device, consisting of four gas cylinders covered in petrol were found in the upmarket 16th arrondissement near the Parc des Princes stadium, just hours before PSG were playing a league game.
Five men have been arrested, including a known Islamist extremist who was meant to be under surveillance.
Foiled plot: The device, consisting of four gas cylinders covered in petrol were found near the Parc des Princes stadium, just hours before 50,000 arrived to watch PSG play Bordeaux
The four gas cylinders were linked to a ‘mobile phone that could ignite the cylinders so causing an explosion’, said an investigating source in the French capital.
Close to 50,000 people arrived at the stadium later on Saturday for the league champions tie against Bordeaux.
They included the most expensive multi-millionaire footballers in the world, including the Brazilian Neymar da Silva Santos and France international Kylian Mbappe.
‘The device was soaked in petrol and operational,’ said the source. ‘It was found when a local resident of the building in Rue Chanez called the police shortly before 4.30am on Saturday.
‘Five suspects were arrested at the scene, including a known radical with links to Islamist movements.’
Blissfully unaware: Brazilian Neymar da Silva Santos and France international Kylian Mbappe, pictured with Edinson Cavani, played in the game hours after the bomb was found
Today French Interior Minister Gerard Collomb suggested that the man may have slipped the agents tailing him by using ‘a friend’.
Mr Collomb said the suspect was on the ‘FSPRT file’, which denotes someone who has been radicalized to the extent that they display signs of a ‘terrorist character’.
It is common for those under surveillance to employ someone who looks like them to briefly escape agents watching them.
‘When you watch someone, there is always a nebula, a friend ready to help the one who is on the file,’ Mr Collomb told France Inter radio station.
A ‘nebula’ is a cloud of gas and dust in outer space that is normally only visible as an indistinct patch of light or dark silhouette.
All of those arrested on Saturday remain in custody, but none have yet been formally identified. The bomb was diffused by experts at the scene following an evactuation.
Details of the operation were not released until today as anti-terrorist police carried out raids in the Paris suburbs linked to it.
Islamic State has targeted Paris stadiums in the past, including in November 2015 when three suicide bombers hit the Stade de France before a friendly between France and Germany.
Two of the men blew themselves up with the loss of one innocent man, while a third bomber ran away, dumping his explosives later on.
He turned out to be Salah Abdeslam, a French Isis terrorist who is now in a high security prison close to Paris awaiting trial.
Mr Collomb said that the building where the bomb was found could have been the main target, but no theory was yet being ruled out.
‘Blowing up a building in a chic neighbourhood shows that no one is safe,’ said Mr Collomb. ‘It shows that it could happen anywhere in France.’
France remains under a state of emergency following a series of bomb, shooting and stabbing atrocities carried out by Isis operatives.
On Sunday a suspected Jihadi was shot dead in the southern port city of Marseille after murdering two young cousins with a knife next to a city station.
Despite such bloodbaths, Mr Collomb said that 12 planned terrorist outrages had been foiled across France since the beginning of the year.