2 men arrested in Switzerland with explosive traces in car

Two men of Syrian origin were arrested Friday in Geneva with traces of explosives in their car, Swiss public television said, as the city remained on alert due to an increased jihadist threat.

A police operation was underway on a road leading to the French border, RTS television reported.

A police spokesman in the canton of Geneva told AFP that tests had been carried out on a vehicle, but refused to confirm the arrests.

The police have been searching since Wednesday for four suspected jihadists, acting on information provided by a foreign intelligence agency.

The four men, whose photographs are being shown on Swiss media, are accused of links to the Islamic State group.

The Geneva region raised its alert level to three on a five-point scale on Thursday, and armed police have been deployed at sensitive locations across the western city, which is home to the UN's European headquarters.

The office of Switzerland's top prosecutor told the ATS news agency that there had been no arrests in connection with a probe it opened Thursday into "a terrorist threat in the Geneva region," targeting unnamed individuals over suspected support for banned groups, including "Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State".

Geneva is almost entirely enclosed by France, a country still reeling from the jihadist attacks that left 130 people dead in Paris last month.
Source: AFP