PARIS — Three women arrested in connection with a car loaded with gas cylinders found near Notre Dame cathedral had been planning an attack on a Paris railway station, the French interior ministry said.
"An alert has been issued to all stations but they had planned to attack the Gare de Lyon on Thursday," a ministry official said Friday.
The official also said the youngest of the three women, a 19-year-old whose father was the owner of the car, had written a letter pledging allegiance to ISIS.
Sunday's discovery of the Peugeot 607 laden with seven gas cylinders triggered a terrorism investigation and revived fears about further attacks in a country where Islamist militants have killed more than 230 people since January 2015.
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France is among the countries bombing ISIS strongholds, and the group has urged supporters to launch more attacks on French soil.
One of the women stabbed a police officer during her arrest before being shot and wounded, Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said late on Thursday.
"These three women — aged 39, 23 and 19 — had been radicalized, were fanatics and were in all likelihood preparing an imminent, violent act," Cazeneuve said in a televised statement.
The arrests took place in Boussy-Saint-Antoine, some 20 miles south-east of Paris. They bring to seven the number of people detained since Tuesday.