Authorities in Switzerland have put the country's law enforcement and anti-terror units on high alert even as a massive manhunt is underway in Geneva for five suspects associated with the recent terror attack in Paris.

Heavily-armed Swiss police are combing the streets of Geneva for five men who are allegedly part of the network of Mourad Fares, according to CNN. 

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Fares, a French national, is a known recruiter for the Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria (ISIS). He is said to have recruited the 23-year old Foued Mohamed-Aggad, the third shooter in the Bataclan Theater in Paris, where the attackers gunned down 90 people on November 13.

"We have gone from a vague threat to a precise threat," said Emanuelle Lo Verso, head of communications at the Geneva Department of Security.  She declined to discuss the nature of the threat.

Initial reports however suggest that the Swiss government received communications last Wednesday from the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) warning that four individuals were planning terror attacks in Switzerland and the United States. 

"It was the CIA who gave the alert to Swiss officials," said a recent tweet from Le Matin, a newspaper popular among Switzerland's French-speaking populations.  A photo of four men with blacked out eyes and raised index fingers -- said to be an ISIS signal -- was attached to the tweet.  Both Reuters and Le Matin have said that the photo was passed on by the CIA.

National authorities have provided authorities in Geneva with descriptions of the suspects, who are believed to be in Geneva or somewhere in the Geneva region. The suspects are believed to have returned to Europe after meeting with ISIS connections in Syria.  The same group is said to have discussed attacks on Chicago and in Toronto, Canada. 

Swiss authorities are also looking for two men who had driven into Switzerland on Tuesday night in a van registered in Belgium, the BBC reports.  Jewish communities in Switzerland have been warned to be on the lookout for the van. 

Security has meanwhile been stepped up outside synagogues, train stations, the airport, the offices of the United Nations (UN) in Geneva and the French ambassador's residence, among other places.

The BBC reports that the Geneva manhunt forms part of a larger investigation involving several European countries. 

TagsGeneva, Swizerland, ISIS, Paris Attacks, UN, World News