Swiss police hunt 4 Paris assault suspects — MAXIMUM TERROR ALERT

Two men of Syrian origin were arrested on December 11 in Geneva with traces of explosives in their vehicle.

The two are also suspected of violating a law barring groups like al-Qaeda and the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) from Switzerland, the attorney general told BBC.

The pair were arrested on Friday in Geneva, the attorney general’s statement said.

The two suspects arrested Friday are accused of the “manufacture, concealment and transport of explosives and toxic gases”, the federal prosecutor’s office said in a statement.

The authorities announced a first probe relating to a “terrorist threat in the Geneva region” on Thursday, prompting the region to raise its alert level to three on a five-point scale.

Geneva security officials had recently raised the alert level in the city in connection with a hunt for four suspects linked to the Paris attacks on 13 November, but it is as yet unclear if these arrests are directly linked to that operation. “In light of the worldwide and national investigation in that followed the attacks in Paris, the Police Department in Geneva is actively searching for several individuals under the guidance of the Federal Intelligence Services”, stated a press release by the city’s department of safety issued Thurs. Police have been deployed around Geneva as the city remains on alert.

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