Car with gas cylinders found outside Marseille synagogue

A week after police in Paris discovered a booby-trapped car near a tourist attraction, a suspect vehicle with gas cylinders was found outside a Jewish community centre in the southern city of Marseille.

The parked car found on Saturday morning outside the Bar Yohaye Jewish Community Centre and synagogue in Marseille’s 4th Arrondissement east of the Saint-Charles railways station had no trigger mechanism to cause an explosion and was not stolen, Laurent Nuñez, the police commissioner of the Bouches-du-Rhône region, told La Provence.

There was no indication that the car found in Marseille was connected in any way to what police believe was a foiled attempt to carry out a terrorist attack in Paris last week involving a car with several gas cylinders that was found abandoned near Paris’s Notre Dame cathedral, Nuñez added.

Three women were arrested last week in connection with the Paris incident. They were likely planning an imminent attack, French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said.

Police in Marseille were trying to locate the owner of the car they found near the synagogue, Nuñez said.