Thwarted Paris plot linked to deadly Brussels ISIS cell
PARIS -- A man arrested by French police Thursday, who was suspected of "high level" involvement in a looming terror plot, appears to have had connections to the ISIS cell in Brussels that carried out the deadly attacks in Paris and the Belgian capital.
French police evacuated an apartment building Thursday night in Argenteuil, on the northern outskirts of the French capital, and placed the area under lockdown.
CBS News correspondent Debora Patta says bomb disposal experts were brought in to search for anything suspicious, and French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve was quick to provide details.
"This operation has enabled us to defeat a prospective terrorist attack in France," he said, adding that the plot was, "at an advanced stage."
Patta reports that the man taken into custody was Reda Kriket, who was convicted in absentia in July 2015 in Belgium for recruiting ISIS members along with Abdelhamid Abaaoud, one of the leaders of the Nov. 13, 2015, Paris attacks that left 130 people dead.
Kriket, a 34-year-old French national, was convicted alongside Abaaoud of being part of a jihadist network planning to travel to Syria.
During the raid on Thursday that ended in his arrest, police found a small quantity of explosives at the apartment in Argenteuil.
This latest high profile arrest and possible foiling of another terrorist attack came just two days after the Brussels bombings, which officials have indicated was carried out by members of the same ISIS cell behind the Paris carnage.
Abaaoud, who was killed in a raid outside Paris just days after the attacks in that city, was a known associate of the brothers, Ibrahim and Khalid El Bakraoui, who blew themselves up in the Brussels Airport and Metro systems, respectively.