Olympics terror plot suspects detained

Brazilian police have arrested ten men believed to have pledged allegiance to Islamic State on suspicion of planning terrorist attacks during the Rio Olympics.

The Defenders of Sharia group had plotted to buy AK-47 assault rifles in Paraguay, Alexandre de Moraes, the justice minister, said. All the suspects are Brazilian and some had allegedly recently converted to Islam, he added.

De Moraes said that the group had been disorganised and amateur and appeared to have had no direct contact with Isis.

In social media exchanges monitored by security services, the men said that they would need to learn martial arts and even how to shoot the weapons that they were planning to buy online from an illicit arms dealer, de Moraes said.

Police moved in when the group appeared ready to buy weapons.

Two of the suspects had served six years in prison for murder. Emails and text messages allegedly showed that the men had praised the mass killings in Nice last week and a gay club in Orlando last month for which Isis claimed responsibility.

Arrest warrants were issued for 12 people, one of whom is a minor. Ten suspects were detained, and the justice minister said that the two others were under observation.

The arrests came after a previously unknown group calling itself Ansar al- Khilafah Brazil said on a messaging app last weekend that it had pledged allegiance to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the Isis leader. Police have said in recent months that Isis had started distributing online propaganda in Portuguese in the apparent hope of inspiring a ‘‘lone wolf’’ attack at the Games.

The Olympics open on August 5 and are expected to involve about 10,500 competitors and 500,000 spectators.

A total of 85,000 police, soldiers and private security guards were planned to protect the event but authorities stepped up security after the massacre in Nice last week.

The Games have already been overshadowed by rising crime in Rio, economic and political crises and fears over the zika virus.