Teen arrested in France for alleged links to ISIS jihadi
PARIS -- French authorities say a teenager was arrested this week for allegedly being linked to a French jihadi who claimed responsibility for the Bastille Day truck attack in Nice on behalf of the Islamic State group.
The Paris prosecutor’s office said Friday that the 17-year-old boy was detained in the western town of Rennes and being questioned by a judge in Paris under a “criminal terrorist association” investigation.
The office says the teen used social networks to communicate with Rachid Kassim, whose name has appeared in connection with at least four recent terror plots targeting France.
Kassim was the public face of an IS video claiming responsibility for the July 14 truck rampage that left 86 people dead in Nice, and he is thought to be operating from Iraq or Syria.
The Nice attack was just one in a string of attacks France has suffered since early last year. In January 2015, three Islamic militants with Kalashnikov rifles attacked the Paris offices of the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo, killing 12 people. Just over a year ago, on November 13, militants unleashed a slew of assaults on locations across Paris, killing 130.
The Nice attack took place this past summer in mid-July, and days later, two attackers seized hostages in a church near the Normandy city of Rouen. They slit a priest’s throat before they were shot and killed by police.
France declared a state of emergency after the Nov. 13 Paris attacks. It is still in effect.