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Austria police arrest two in connection with Paris attacks

Wednesday, 16 December 2015 1:09 PM [ Last Update: Wednesday, 16 December 2015 1:12 PM ]

The file photo shows Austrian police officers.

Austrian police have arrested two people in connection with the November 13 terrorist attacks in the French capital, Paris.

Prosecutors said Wednesday that the two suspects were posing as refugees in the time of detention.

Robert Holzleitner, a spokesman for prosecutors in Salzburg, said the two, who were arrested at the weekend, came from the Middle East, adding that investigations are underway to see whether they have any possible link to the attacks in Paris, where 130 people were killed.

Holzleitner and the Austrian Interior Ministry would not comment on the nationality of the suspects.

“Indications of a possible link to the Paris attacks are currently being investigated,” Holzleitner said, adding the two men are also suspected of having links to terrorist groups in the Middle East.

A report on the website of the Kronen-Zeitung daily said that the two arrested men were French nationals and they arrived in Austria in October along with members of the terror cell that carried out the Paris attacks. The daily said the two had fake Syrian passports.

It said the suspects had traveled from Greece through the Balkans into Austria, adding that Austrian officials used information provided by a foreign intelligence agency to put the men under arrest.

Prosecutors in the European countries have intensified raid orders and investigations that may result in new findings about Paris attacks. Daesh, a Takfiri group based in Syria and Iraq, claimed the explosions and shootings in Paris, prompting the European officials to search for citizens or refugees who have returned from those two countries.

French officials announced on Wednesday that they had arrested a motorist after he tried to crash through barriers at a monument in Paris. Other people have also been arrested in Belgium in similar cases.

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