France is 'enemy No 1'

2005-09-27 22:42

Paris - An Algerian Islamist organisation, the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC), has issued a call for action against France, which it describes as "enemy No 1", intelligence officials said on Tuesday.

"The only way to teach France to behave is jihad and the Islamic martyr," said the group's leader, Abu Mossab Abdelwadoud, also known as Abdelmalek Dourkdal, in an internet message earlier this month.

He was quoted as saying: "France is our enemy No 1, the enemy of our religion, the enemy of our community."

France was mentioned 15 times in the text and the Algerian government was also targeted, said the officials.

Nine people detained in a series of raids west of Paris on Monday are suspected members of the GSPC, officials have said.

They were being questioned for a second day on Tuesday at the headquarters of the DST domestic intelligence agency.

Interior minister Nicolas Sarkozy said on Monday the risk of terrorist attack in France is "at a very high level... There are cells operating on our territory".

The GSPC was created from a split in the Armed Islamic Group, the main force in Algeria's long insurgency, which was also responsible for a series of bombings in France in 1995.

- AFP