4 Arrested in France With Items Suggesting Chemical Attack Plot
By JOHN TAGLIABUE
New York Times
PARIS, Dec, 17 — In the latest sweep against suspected Islamic radical groups here, French officials said today they arrested four people early Monday and seized chemicals and a military personal protection suit suggesting they may have been preparing a chemical terrorist attack.
The interior minister, Nicolas Sarkozy, said that three men and a woman, all of North African origin, were being held on suspicion of planning terrorist attacks. He said chemicals found in an apartment in the northern Paris suburb of La Corneuve, where the four were arrested, were being analyzed by police experts.
A police official said forged documents, a computer and large amounts of dollars and euros were also seized. The official said results of the analysis of the chemicals contained in two large containers would come as early as Wednesday.
Mr. Sarkozy, addressing the assembly or parliament, said some of the four were thought to have attended training camps in Afghanistan and Chechnya. The presence in the apartment of the military suit for protection against chemicals was particularly unsettling to investigators, he said.
The raid was the most recent in several waves of arrests in France in recent weeks as the authorities remain on high alert to thwart possible attacks by radical Islamic groups.
Mr. Sarkozy said the men, two Algerians and a Moroccan, were believed to have spent time in Chechnya and that they were in contact with an Algerian, Rabah Kadre, who was arrested in London in November and charged there together with two other North African men with possessing materials to prepare terrorist attacks.
The arrests in Paris came at the behest of France's top antiterrorism judge, Jean-Louis Bruguière. In recent interviews, Mr. Bruguière has suggested that Chechnya has increasingly assumed the role once held by Afghanistan as a training ground for Islamic radicals later deployed in the West.
News accounts in Britain suggested that Mr. Kadre, 35, and the men charged with him were plotting to attack the London underground with bombs or poison gas during rush hour.
Agence France Presse, citing French officials, identified one of the men as Ben Ahmed Mirouani, 29, an Algerian, who was detained with his wife, also Algerian.
Le Monde, the Paris daily, quoted French investigators as saying that the men arrested had been in contact with a band of Algerians, five of whom went on trial in Frankfurt in April, accused of planning to blow up a Christmas market in France and of being part of an Islamic terrorist group trained in Afghanistan.
French investigators believe the so-called Frankfurt group may have ultimately answered to Amar Makhlulif, also known as Abu Doha. British investigators have identified Mr. Makhlulif as an associate of Osama bin Laden, a recruiter of fighters for camps in Afghanistan and a leader of the Los Angeles airport plot by Ahmed Ressam, another Algerian who is a confessed terrorist.
By JOHN TAGLIABUE
New York Times
PARIS, Dec, 17 — In the latest sweep against suspected Islamic radical groups here, French officials said today they arrested four people early Monday and seized chemicals and a military personal protection suit suggesting they may have been preparing a chemical terrorist attack.
The interior minister, Nicolas Sarkozy, said that three men and a woman, all of North African origin, were being held on suspicion of planning terrorist attacks. He said chemicals found in an apartment in the northern Paris suburb of La Corneuve, where the four were arrested, were being analyzed by police experts.
A police official said forged documents, a computer and large amounts of dollars and euros were also seized. The official said results of the analysis of the chemicals contained in two large containers would come as early as Wednesday.
Mr. Sarkozy, addressing the assembly or parliament, said some of the four were thought to have attended training camps in Afghanistan and Chechnya. The presence in the apartment of the military suit for protection against chemicals was particularly unsettling to investigators, he said.
The raid was the most recent in several waves of arrests in France in recent weeks as the authorities remain on high alert to thwart possible attacks by radical Islamic groups.
Mr. Sarkozy said the men, two Algerians and a Moroccan, were believed to have spent time in Chechnya and that they were in contact with an Algerian, Rabah Kadre, who was arrested in London in November and charged there together with two other North African men with possessing materials to prepare terrorist attacks.
The arrests in Paris came at the behest of France's top antiterrorism judge, Jean-Louis Bruguière. In recent interviews, Mr. Bruguière has suggested that Chechnya has increasingly assumed the role once held by Afghanistan as a training ground for Islamic radicals later deployed in the West.
News accounts in Britain suggested that Mr. Kadre, 35, and the men charged with him were plotting to attack the London underground with bombs or poison gas during rush hour.
Agence France Presse, citing French officials, identified one of the men as Ben Ahmed Mirouani, 29, an Algerian, who was detained with his wife, also Algerian.
Le Monde, the Paris daily, quoted French investigators as saying that the men arrested had been in contact with a band of Algerians, five of whom went on trial in Frankfurt in April, accused of planning to blow up a Christmas market in France and of being part of an Islamic terrorist group trained in Afghanistan.
French investigators believe the so-called Frankfurt group may have ultimately answered to Amar Makhlulif, also known as Abu Doha. British investigators have identified Mr. Makhlulif as an associate of Osama bin Laden, a recruiter of fighters for camps in Afghanistan and a leader of the Los Angeles airport plot by Ahmed Ressam, another Algerian who is a confessed terrorist.