A 16-year-old girl was among four people arrested Friday in an anti-terrorism raid by French authorities in southern France, according to reports. The authorities found a makeshift laboratory with the explosive triacetone triperoxide (TATP) and other ingredients required to make a bomb, the Paris prosecutor’s office said.
The anti-terrorism forces raided the house of a 20-year-old man in Montpellier area. They seized nearly 3 ounces of TATP from the house along with a liter each of acetone, oxygenated water and sulfuric acid.
Among those arrested were three men between the ages of 20 and 33, the prosecutor’s office, which handles terrorism investigations in France, reportedly said. A police official told the Associated Press that one of the suspects was believed to be planning a suicide attack.
France has been on high alert following a series of terror attacks in the country. In January 2015, the offices of satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo were attacked, leading to the death of 12 people. In November 2015, an attack at the Bataclan nightclub and simultaneous attacks throughout Paris killed 130 people. Last July, a man drove a vehicle through a crowd celebrating Bastille Day in Nice that claimed lives of 84 people.
Suicide bombers of the Nov. 13, 2015, Paris attacks used TATP, French authorities said at the time. TATP, which is unstable, can be made in a household, using, among other ingredients, hydrogen peroxide. It was used to make explosives for the failed July 2005 attacks on London. Explosive experts say TATP is easy to make, easy to set off and susceptible to accidental detonations. A bomb made of TATP was detonated on a Philippine Airlines flight to Japan in December 1994, and a TATP bomb exploded outside the Israeli Embassy in London that same year.
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