French Police Arrest 11 in Recruitment for Al Qaeda

[IronScorpio5]

The French antiterrorism police have arrested 11 people, most of them accused of connections to Iraqi insurgency recruitment rings linked to Al Qaeda, the Interior Ministry said Wednesday.

Two suspects were detained at Orly Airport on Tuesday night, and nine were detained on Wednesday, mostly in southwestern France.

French news reports said that the two men detained at the airport had been expelled from Syria. Le Monde said they had been arrested in Syria in mid-December as part of a group thought to be affiliated with Al Qaeda.

The arrests took place after an investigation by French intelligence services over several months, the Interior Ministry said.

“These individuals from southwestern France are involved in the organization of a jihadist recruitment ring for Iraq,” the ministry said.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/15/world/europe/15france.html?ex=1329195600&en=215257df1cd0dc40&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss

[Eugene]

1. Related: France says Iraq fighters sent to Egyptian schools - Reuters

France says Iraq fighters sent to Egyptian schools
16 Feb 2007 21:08:39 GMT
Source: Reuters

PARIS, Feb 16 (Reuters) - France said on Friday that a network which recruited
people to fight in Iraq, including becoming suicide bombers, had been sending
trainees to radical Islamic schools in Egypt before they went to Iraq.

On Wednesday France said its police had arrested eleven people as part of a probe
into a suspected recruitment ring. Nine of those arrested were thought to have
links with al Qaeda.

The operation was carried out as a result of a joint investigation with the Belgian
authorities. Nine people were also detained in Belgium.

"The recruits were firstly sent to Egypt to learn Arabic and the doctrines of salafism
(an Islamic school of thought) in the most radical schools (madrasas), before meeting
up, via a cell in Saudi Arabia linked to al Qaeda, with a network organised in Syria
to take them to Iraq, to commit terrorist acts notably in the form of suicide attacks,"
the French Justice Ministry said in a statement on Friday.

-snip-

Full article: http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L16569803.htm