Top France seizes military arsenal in Zarqawi-tied probe| Reuters.com
France seizes military arsenal in Zarqawi-tied probe
By Thierry Leveque
PARIS (Reuters) - French police have seized large quantities of military weapons and explosives as part of a probe into an Islamic militant group said to have indirect links to al Qaeda's leader in Iraq, officials said on Thursday.
Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy told reporters the arsenal was discovered on Wednesday in a lock-up attached to a block of flats in the Clichy-sous-Bois suburb north of Paris.
Judicial sources said the haul included assault rifles, dynamite and TNT.
Police also arrested on Wednesday two new suspects in addition to the 25 rounded up in a string of dawn raids in the Paris area on Monday.
Investigators believe the gang financed Islamic militancy by staging armed robberies and judicial sources said one suspect had admitted planning one such robbery in Beauvais, north of Paris, in October.
Sarkozy told parliament this week that those detained had indirect links to key al Qaeda leaders and Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the organization's leader in Iraq.
"Thanks to the arrests, an arms cache has just been discovered which reveals the seriousness of this matter. They are very determined people, with links between terrorist extremism and major crime," Sarkozy told BFM TV.
"We think they have indirect links, at a fairly high level, with al Qaeda," he said.
So despite being against the Iraq war, and basically doing anything at all to fight the war on terror, France is a target of Al Qaeda. Appeasement does not work. You think the French would know that by now!
France seizes military arsenal in Zarqawi-tied probe
By Thierry Leveque
PARIS (Reuters) - French police have seized large quantities of military weapons and explosives as part of a probe into an Islamic militant group said to have indirect links to al Qaeda's leader in Iraq, officials said on Thursday.
Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy told reporters the arsenal was discovered on Wednesday in a lock-up attached to a block of flats in the Clichy-sous-Bois suburb north of Paris.
Judicial sources said the haul included assault rifles, dynamite and TNT.
Police also arrested on Wednesday two new suspects in addition to the 25 rounded up in a string of dawn raids in the Paris area on Monday.
Investigators believe the gang financed Islamic militancy by staging armed robberies and judicial sources said one suspect had admitted planning one such robbery in Beauvais, north of Paris, in October.
Sarkozy told parliament this week that those detained had indirect links to key al Qaeda leaders and Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the organization's leader in Iraq.
"Thanks to the arrests, an arms cache has just been discovered which reveals the seriousness of this matter. They are very determined people, with links between terrorist extremism and major crime," Sarkozy told BFM TV.
"We think they have indirect links, at a fairly high level, with al Qaeda," he said.
So despite being against the Iraq war, and basically doing anything at all to fight the war on terror, France is a target of Al Qaeda. Appeasement does not work. You think the French would know that by now!
Comments