“We cannot exclude a planned action, that is to say actions carried out by individuals coming from zones of terrorist action, in particular the Iraqi-Syrian zone.
In an interview with BFMTV broadcast this Friday, the head of the national anti-terrorist prosecution, Jean-François Ricard, does not rule out the possibility of a new external terrorist threat in France.
“We might not have said that two years ago”, he underlined, before explaining that we had “been able to see how the Islamic State was reconstituting certain pockets, recomposing itself”, these last months.
“We must take this into account in the risks of an attack that could hit our country.
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Read alsoSyria: Daesh attacks a large prison and frees jihadists
The attack on the prison of Hassaké, in Syria, in January by the terrorist group in particular raised the concerns of the authorities.
The Islamic State had carried out an operation to free jihadist prisoners, before the Kurds regained control of the place.
According to the report of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, 268 jihadists, 98 members of the Kurdish forces and seven civilians died in this operation, that is to say 373 people.
A concern about the released convicts
Asked about the fate of those convicted of jihadism who come out of prison at the end of their sentence, Jean-François Ricard did not show angelism towards them: "It would be very naive to believe that the vast majority of those who were condemned for terrorist actions of the jihadist type would today have abandoned their ideology today.
We even see very often that they have lost none of their conviction, ”he reacted.
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Despite constant work by the intelligence services, “if some really want to take action again, it will be very difficult.
We will have to do everything to avoid it, (…) but it is a real problem, we should certainly not deny it”.
