Terrorism: this disturbing French group led by a 27-year-old Swiss

Nine men and a woman, aged between 18 and 65, were arrested on Tuesday in four French departments and in Switzerland as part of a counterterrorism investigation.

The aspiring terrorists communicated on Telegram encrypted messaging, under the leadership of a Swiss proselyte. A vast net was conducted this Tuesday morning in Islamist circles, as part of a judicial cooperation between France and Switzerland. Ten people - nine men and a woman - were arrested in four French departments and a Swiss canton, suspected of having evoked a project of attack on the internet, indicate police and judicial sources to L'Express. They are between 18 and 65 years old.

"The suspects evoked plans for violent actions on a Telegram group, which was led by the arrested Swiss national.Their remarks were worrying but, at this stage, nothing was completed or stopped," says one of these sources.

"The hearings should clarify the outline of the projects they were feeding, but according to the first elements, they wanted to act on French soil," confirms the judicial source. Among the targets mentioned are the cities of Marseille and Nice, according to information from M6.

Known suspects from intelligence services

In France, the arrests, carried out as part of a judicial investigation opened on 19 July by the Paris prosecutor's office, took place mainly in the Alpes-Maritimes, from where five of the suspects originate. Two of them are brothers. According to Nice-Matin, they lived in Menton and were known in their neighborhood to boast of having stayed in Syria. Three other men were "picked" in Bouches-du-Rhône, Val-de-Marne and Seine-Saint-Denis.

"Most suspects arrested known intelligence services for their radicalization, except the 65-year-old suspect who was domiciled in the Alpes-Maritimes," says a police source to L'Express.

The Swiss, a convert of Bosnian origin

The ninth suspect, the 27-year-old Swiss, was arrested in a French commune on the Swiss border. His role is described as "central" in the case by a police source: described as "very active" on Telegram, it is he who created the group on which the suspects exchanged, animated the discussions and validated access. This convert had adopted on the encrypted message a pseudonym in tribute to his Bosnian origins.

The tenth person, a 23-year-old Colombian national, was arrested in Switzerland between the cantons of Neuchâtel and Vaud. It would be the companion of the arrested Swiss. The couple was targeted by an investigation by the Swiss judicial authorities for belonging to a terrorist group, which has been open since June 2016.

SAISI