French anti-terror prosecutors have opened an investigation into two brothers suspected of plotting a deadly antisemitic attack in France.
The national anti-terror prosecutor’s office said the brothers, aged 20 and 22 and of Italian and Moroccan nationality, were arrested on Tuesday in northern France while in a car near a prison in the town of Longuenesse after a report of a drone flying over the jail.
Police found a loaded semi-automatic weapon, a bottle of hydrochloric acid, aluminum foil, and an Islamic State flag stretched across the headrest of the driver’s seat inside the vehicle.
Prosecutors said the brothers admitted during questioning that they had been planning a terror attack in France and aspired to martyrdom. According to the statement, the suspects had become radicalized over the past two years and had recently intensified their jihadist commitment.
The prosecutor’s office said the brothers turned to planning an attack in France after concluding they could not travel to Syria or the Palestinian territories to wage jihad.
Investigators also found a video recorded earlier this month in which one of the brothers pledged allegiance to the Islamic State group. Prosecutors said he appeared to be in contact with several radicalized individuals or people under investigation or convicted in terrorism cases.
The office added that encrypted exchanges in the days and weeks before the arrests, including efforts to obtain handguns or assault rifles, suggested that a violent act was imminent.
An investigation was opened into terrorist criminal conspiracy and weapons offenses. Prosecutors have requested that the two brothers be charged and remanded in custody.
The brothers arrived in France with their parents in 2017, after the family had spent several years in Italy.