MOSCOW (Sputnik) — The four girls, aged 14-18, were subscribed to an online group who called themselves "The Lionesses" and had ties to an Islamist, Rachid Kassim, who died on February 8 in a drone strike in Iraq, Le Parisien newspaper said.
The girls were detained in a Paris suburb, in the commune of Creil not far from the capital and in the city of Mulhouse close to the German border. A source close to the inquiry told the paper their communications suggested they could have been preparing an act of violence.
Kassim was reportedly a member of Daesh, a violent militant group that is outlawed as a terrorist organization in France, Russia and many other countries. The jihadist is suspected of having controlled around 15 terror plots in France.
