French police have arrested six people – including two minors – suspected of recruiting female jihadis to fight in Syria, reports The Guardian.
The arrests were made on Tuesday and Wednesday in a suburb of Lyon. During searches at the addresses raided by police, officers reportedly found various weapons including Kalashnikovs, and other equipment said to be gas masks, flashlights and ammunition.
Police said among those arrested at Meyzieu and Vaulx-en-Velin, on the outskirts of the city, two were minors, including a 13-year-old girl. Two others were a brother and sister suspected of being what officers described as "sergeant recruiters". One of the arrested suspects is linked to the Islamist group Forsane Alizza, or Knights of Pride, which has called for France to become an Islamic caliphate, which was banned in 2012.
The French interior minister, Bernard Cazeneuve, congratulated police on the operation and said the arrested suspects were believed to have "played a very active role in the recruitment and departure of several young women to Syria in recent months".
The French authorities are concerned about the growing number of French women and girls seeking to join Islamic State (Isis). Of the estimated 350 French nationals believed to be currently engaged with the Islamist group in Syria, at least 63 are believed to be female and six are minors.
Caseneuve reiterated the government's determination to carry on "a relentless fight against the jihadist networks".
He says around 930 French citizens, or foreign nationals living in France, are involved in the Islamic fundamentalist network. Several hundred are believed to be in Syria already, while hundreds more are thought to be either on their way to join Isis, preparing to go, or back in France having already been.
The number is the highest in any European country.
There are fears they may carry out terrorist attacks in their home countries or in Europe when they return. Frenchman Mehdi Nemmouche, who has been charged with killing four people in an attack on the Jewish Museum in Brussels in May, is believed to have fought with Isis in Syria.
Read more of this report from The Guardian.