France arrests two more suspects on Bank of America’s foiled attack

PARIS, March 30 (Reuters) – French authorities have arrested two more suspects on Monday over a foiled attack on Bank of America’s Paris offices, bringing the total number of detained to five, the country’s anti-terrorism prosecutor’s office said.

The custody of the first three suspects, all of them minors of age and who were arrested on Saturday and Sunday, was extended, the prosecutor’s office said in a statement.

The statement did not disclose any information on the identity of the two new suspects or on their links with the other three.

Under French law, suspects in terrorism cases can be held in custody for up to 96 hours, with further extensions possible under judicial oversight.

French police arrested one minor on the scene in the early hours of Saturday in Paris’ 8th arrondissement after a patrol assigned to protecting sensitive sites spotted two individuals placing and attempting to ignite an improvised explosive device outside the bank. The other managed to escape.

The device, though rudimentary, could have been lethal, and officers prevented it from being ignited, Interior Minister Laurent Nunez said on Saturday.

He added the individuals appeared to be “common-law” offenders acting as paid intermediaries, in what he described as a known modus operandi involving proxies recruited to carry out such attacks.

He pointed at suspicions involving Iran as a possible sponsor, though no conclusion has been reached, he insisted. The Iran embassy did not respond to messages seeking comment.

Nunez said authorities had identified similarities with incidents in several European countries, including the Netherlands, Belgium, Britain and Norway, where improvised devices targeted sites linked to U.S. interests or Jewish communities.

(Reporting by Inti Landauro and Mathieu Rosemain, Editing by Charlotte Van Campenhout)