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PARIS, April 4 (AFP) - A haul of some 100 kilograms (220 pounds) of Semtex explosives seized at the weekend by French police in the northern town of Hazebrouck came from Bosnia and was destined for the criminal underground, justice officials said Monday. Five people were detained after the Czech-made explosives, along with a stock of detonators, were found on Saturday concealed in a lorry containing metal parts bound for a company in the area. Three were arrested at the scene and two others -- the suspected purchasers of the Semtex -- were detained later in Paris. The ring-leader was...

Six in France are guilty in plot to bomb U.S. Embassy Excerpted By Sebastian Rotella Los Angeles Times PARIS - A French court convicted six Islamic militants Tuesday of conspiring to bomb the U.S. Embassy here, culminating a lengthy and labyrinthine case involving a European terror network linked to key al-Qaida members. The three-judge panel sentenced the French Algerian ringleader of the Paris-based cell, Djamel Beghal, to the maximum penalty of 10 years in prison for terrorist conspiracy. His lieutenant, computer expert Kamel Daoudi, received a nine-year sentence. Two suspects were sentenced to six-year terms and the others received three...

PARIS (Reuters) - Suspected Islamists arrested by secret service agents in Paris this week were plotting terrorist attacks on French and foreign targets in the country, the Paris public prosecutor's office said on Friday. Anti-terrorism magistrates are to prosecute three of the 11 people detained in a series of swoops in a northern district of the French capital on Monday and Tuesday, the prosecutor's office said in a statement. The others have been released or will be shortly. "This network is suspected of drawing up plans for attacks in France against French and foreign interests," said the prosecutor's office in...

Ten people suspected of plotting a terrorist attack on the eastern French city of Strasbourg are on trial in Paris. The suspects are believed to have ties with the al-Qaida terrorist network. The 10 men are accused of planning a terrorist attack on the cathedral and Christmas market of Strasbourg, France, four years ago. The plot was uncovered just days before the attack was to have been carried out, in December 2000. The defendants are all of Algerian or French Algerian descent. Prosecutors accuse one of them, 37-year-old Mohammed Bensakria, of being a lieutenant of al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden....

Five suspected Islamic militants have been arrested in eastern France as part of an inquiry into the 11 September 2001 attacks, police sources say. The five are thought to be linked to a Moroccan man with alleged ties to the al-Qaeda network. They were arrested late on Tuesday in the Alsace towns of Selestat and Colmar as part of an investigation conducted by two anti-terrorist judges. They were taken to counter-terrorism headquarters in Paris on Wednesday. The raids took place on the orders of anti-terror investigative judges Jean-Louis Bruguiere and Jean-Francois Richard. The men can be held for up to...

Behind the heavy wooden door of her 10th-floor flat, Amel Benchellali agrees that her mother, her father and her three brothers are in prison on suspicion of involvement in terrorism. But Miss Benchellali, 26, claims they are innocent. Even her brother Menad, who admits that he travelled to Georgia, vainly hoping to join Chechen Muslims fighting the Russians, has committed no crime in her eyes. "I don't know why they have picked on my family," she said. "I don't believe Menad was planning to do anything outside Chechnya. But even if he had done something wrong, that would be no...

hen Chellali Benchellali moved to France 41 years ago his path seemed clear enough. Escaping the misery of his native Algeria, he hoped to get a job, marry, raise a family and blend into the French melting pot.He got part way there. But for the last six months Mr. Benchellali has been in a high-security French prison along with his wife and two of his sons, all accused of helping to plot a chemical attack in the style of Al Qaeda in Europe. A third son has just been released from the American detention center at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, one...

'Top level' al-Qa'eda suspect in Paris By Henry Samuel in Paris (Filed: 19/06/2004) French anti-terrorism magistrates are questioning an al-Qa'eda suspect described as one of the "highest level terrorist suspects to be caught in years". Said Arif, who experts believe to be a lieutenant of Iraq's most wanted terrorist leader, Abu Musab Zarqawi, was flown from Syria to Paris on Thursday night and placed under investigation in relation to a series of planned terrorist strikes in Paris. A spokesman for the French interior ministry described Arif as "highly mobile, with all the terrorist techniques taught in Afghanistan". He said France...

PARIS -- Counterintelligence agents have arrested two Algerians suspected of ties to a dismantled network accused of planning a chemical attack, judicial officials said. The men, whose names were not disclosed, were placed under investigation - one step short of being charged, the officials said Friday. They were arrested on Monday in the Paris region. The arrests stemmed from a French investigation into a network that allegedly was preparing attacks with toxic gas against Russian interests in France, officials have said. One of the two was described as an important member of the cell who made frequent trips to Spain....

(CNSNews.com) - Less than a week after the Madrid train bombings, France has received a letter from an unknown Islamic group threatening violent strikes unless the government withdraws a recently passed law banning Muslim headscarves in schools. The threat, from a group calling itself the "Servants of Allah, the Powerful and Wise One," was received Tuesday by two major French daily newspapers, Le Parisien and Le Monde . Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin, to whom the letter was addressed, made the threat public in the evening. He said his government was taking the threat seriously but asked people not to panic....

PARIS (Reuters) - France has received threats of a possible attack against French interests from an Islamist group apparently named after a Chechen guerrilla killed in a Moscow hostage-taking in 2002, the Interior Ministry says. The letter, sent to several newspapers on Tuesday, threatened "to plunge France into terror and remorse and spill blood outside its frontiers", Jacques Esperandieu, deputy editor of the daily Le Parisien which received a copy, quoted it as saying. The ministry confirmed earlier Justice Ministry reports that the threat, which it said was sent "on behalf of the servants of Allah, the powerful and wise",...

<p>PARIS (AP) -- French officials are investigating threats against France by radical Islamic group, the Justice Ministry said Tuesday.</p> <p>The group identified itself as the "Servants of Allah the Powerful and Wise," the ministry said. It was unclear whether the group is known to French authorities. There was no initial indication of ties of Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida organization.</p>

France has received a new terror threat by an Islamist group and is taking it "very seriously", according to Reuters. More follows... Also From Reuters: PARIS, March 16 (Reuters) - An Islamist group has threatened to stage attacks in France, a Justice Ministry spokeswoman told Reuters on Tuesday. The warning spoke of possible attacks within France and against foreign interests, she said. No further information was immediately available.

The lessons of 2002 to 2004 must never be forgotten, warns Timothy Garton Ash. At last, we have the inquiry we need: a full, independent inquiry into the Paris bombing of 2009. As we all know, in that appalling attack a large area between the Boulevard du Montparnasse and the River Seine was devastated by a small nuclear bomb, detonated by suicide bombers linked to the Algerian-based Islamic Armed Group (GIA). Some 60,000 people were killed. The supremely cultured heart of one of the most beautiful cities in the world was reduced to smouldering ruins. None of us will ever...

<p>PARIS (AP) — The al-Qaida network has been severely destabilized but not destroyed by the war on terror and still represents a "very motivated and very dangerous" threat, the head of France's domestic intelligence agency said Friday.</p> <p>At the same time, French intelligence has over the past 18 months monitored "a surge in strength" by terror cells that have no organizational links with al-Qaida but which "exist all over Europe," Pierre de Bousquet de Florian said in an interview with The Associated Press.</p>

VENISSIEUX, France (AP) - Clean and green, this well-kept Lyon suburb has for three years running won the national competition for "Flowered Cities of France." But Venissieux also has a macabre claim to fame. Long plagued by urban violence, it is emerging as a breeding ground for Islamic radicals, some implicated in an alleged terrorist network that authorities say was preparing a chemical attack against Russian targets. Six residents of Venissieux were arrested Jan. 6 in connection with the planned 2002-2003 New Year's celebrations attack, including a local imam, or prayer leader, Chellali Benchellali, his wife and son. Another...

VENISSIEUX, France - Clean and green, this well-kept Lyon suburb has for three years running won the national competition for "Flowered Cities of France." But Venissieux also has a macabre claim to fame. Long plagued by urban violence, it is emerging as a breeding ground for Islamic radicals, some implicated in an alleged terrorist network that authorities say was preparing a chemical attack against Russian targets. Six residents of Venissieux were arrested Jan. 6 in connection with the planned 2002-2003 New Year's celebrations attack, including a local imam, or prayer leader, Chellali Benchellali, his wife and son. Another son was...

Al-Qaida terror plot foiled, say French police Jon Henley in Paris Monday January 12, 2004 The Guardian (UK) The French police are convinced that their country has escaped a planned chemical or biological attack by an Islamist cell linked to al-Qaida. An interior ministry official said evidence from Islamist militants arrested in the Lyon area last week made it "very plain" that an attack with the deadly botulism or ricin toxins was being actively prepared. The eight suspects arrested on Tuesday were mainly relatives of Menad Benchellali, the son of a radical imam in the Lyon suburb of Venisseux, who...

Terror cells regroup - and now their target is Europe Secret intelligence papers from across the continent reveal a growing danger from a widening network of fanatics - and this is a struggle the West cannot lose Antony Barnett, Jason Burke and Zoe Smith Sunday January 11, 2004 The Observer They had been watching him for months, aware that his pop star good looks concealed a secret life as one of Europe's new terrorist kingpins. Finally, on a cold winter dawn, the police moved in. Abderrazak Mahdjoub did not resist as armed German officers surrounded his Hamburg home and led...

PARIS - French investigators have found no evidence that a passenger who did not show up for a trans-Atlantic flight might be an Afghan-trained al-Qaida sympathizer armed with a bomb, police said Thursday. ABC News reported this week that European authorities were searching for a man with alleged al-Qaida links who failed to board a Paris-to-Los Angeles flight on Christmas Eve — one of six Air France flights canceled amid security fears. ABC reported that the passenger had a French passport, was believed to have undergone training in Afghanistan (news - web sites) and was feared to have a small...