Two Muslim girls, aged 15 and 17, were arrested last week week, after authorities uncovered a plan to carry out a suicide bombing inside the Great Synagogue of Lyon, reports said.
The two teenage girls were indicted on August 22nd for conspiracy to commit terrorism.
An unnamed security source revealed that the two teenagers had never met, but communicated only via social media. “These girls were part of a network of young Islamists who were being monitored by security services,” said the source.
French security services are becoming increasingly concerned with online radicalization, particularly following the proliferation of videos created by jihadist groups such as Islamic State.
The girls are among some 60 people being investigated in France for criminal association in relation with a terrorist enterprise, in one example of how France is taking judicial action against citizens suspected of seeking careers as foreign fighters, even if they have yet to leave French soil. Thousands of European citizens have made the trip to Syrian battlegrounds, but there is no unified plan of action in Europe.
Europe has witnessed a rising tide of anti-Semitic, including attacks against a Jewish Museum in Brussels – in which 4 people were killed- and against synagogues in France.
The National Bureau of Vigilance Against Antisemitism (BNVCA), a group monitoring anti-Semitic incidents in France, remarked that synagogues have become increasingly popular targets for Islamists and terrorists. The excessive measures taken to secure Jewish places of worship have turned them into “semi-fortresses”, it said.