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France Arrests Six on Suspicion of Planning to Train With Militants
By MAÏA DE LA BAUME
Published: May 10, 2011
PARIS Six men suspected of planning to go to Pakistan to train with Islamic militants have been arrested in or near Paris, the French interior minister said Tuesday.
But the minister, Claude Guéant, played down fears of domestic terrorism, saying that nothing indicates that those people were planning an attack in France.
Five of the men, some of them French citizens, were arrested on Monday night and Tuesday morning during police raids in Paris and in two of its heavily immigrant suburbs.
The sixth suspect was arrested Tuesday morning at Charles de Gaulle Airport, as he arrived on a flight from Algeria. Mr. Guéant described him as the groups leader and said he had a high level of technical training. News agencies reported that he was a native of India and an engineer. None of the suspects were identified.
Mr. Guéant said that the six had been in contact with two French citizens who had been arrested in the Pakistani city of Lahore in January and accused of belonging to the group that carried out the 2002 terrorist attack in Bali, which killed about 200.
There was no indication that the Paris arrests had any connection to intelligence gathered by American troops from Osama bin Ladens compound in Pakistan after they killed the Qaeda leader.
French intelligence has been trying to disrupt the reach of jihadist networks, but the authorities say that some Islamic militants travel regularly back and forth to the Pakistani-Afghan border area. Bernard Squarcini, the chief of Frances domestic and police intelligence service, recently told the newspaper Le Monde that about 20 French people were currently training in jihadi camps in Pakistan.
Frances terror threat rating, already at its second-highest possible level, was not raised, nor was it raised after Bin Ladens death.
France has been on high alert over Qaeda threats to attack French citizens unless France pulls its troops out of Afghanistan. Last year, there was a major alert in Europe because of reports that Muslims holding European passports had received training in Qaeda camps and had returned to Europe with the intention of carrying out Mumbai-style attacks on civilians. Officials say that the threat continues.
Al Qaedas North African affiliate, Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, is holding four French nuclear workers in Mali. The group, however, denied responsibility for a cafe bombing in Marrakesh, Morocco, late last month that killed 17 people, 8 of them French. Moroccan officials have arrested a man who they said had been influenced by jihadist ideas.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/11/world/europe/11france.html
