French authorities successfully foiled a terror plot from an Islamist extremist group to blow up the Eiffel Tower, The Telegraph reported.
Reports revealed Wednesday that police discovered the covert operation by decrypting a series of coded messages between an Algerian butcher living in southern France and top al-Qaeda members. Police arrested the butcher in June 2013, a few weeks before he was to fly to Algeria for training.
The al-Qaeda member asked the Algerian, a 29-year-old known only as Ali M, last April if he had any "suggestions concerning how to conduct jihad in the place you are currently," according to the French newspaper Le Parisien.
Ali M suggested the Eiffel Tower, the Louvre museum, airplanes as they prepare for takeoff as well as nuclear plants, The Telegraph reported. When the larger targets did not work, he suggested "the modest and poor French population" in public places like markets and bars.
But the butcher did not stop there- he also suggested famous "cultural events," most likely the Avignon theatre festival, where "thousands of Christians gather for a month."
"The main walkways become black with people and a simple grenade can injure dozens of people, not to mention a booby trapped device," Ali M said according to The Telegraph.
After police arrested Ali M, a married father of two, his lawyer said his client had been brainwashed and "the arrest was a relief for him," Le Parisien reported.
Ali M's arrest comes as French officials are cracking down on suspects they believe are planning on leaving the country to fight holy wars in Iraq or Syria. Parliament is expected to hear anti-terror legislation in the next few days.
Judge Marc Trevidic, a noted anti-terror judge, said there are more cases like Ali M's.
"There are doubtless others on our soil programmed to harm French interests," he told the French paper.
