9 held in anti-terror crackdown
2005-09-26 11:51
Paris - Police detained nine people on Monday in the Paris area and in Normandy in an anti-terror crackdown on a group suspected of having ties to fundamentalist Algerian militants, officials said.
French television station LCI said the group was suspected of planning attacks in France.
The sweep was part of an investigation opened in July by anti- terror judge Jean-Louis Bruguiere, judicial officials said. Those detained were suspected of being members of the Salafist Group for Call and Combat, an Algerian militant group known by its French initials GSPC.
Italian authorities, meanwhile, detained 11 Algerians in and around the northern city of Milan suspected of sending money to the GSPC, which has declared its allegiance to Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda network.
It was not immediately clear whether the Italian and French raids were co-ordinated.
Police in Italy searched some 20 apartments and offices believed linked to the suspects, said Mariano La Malfa, an official with the Milan financial police who led the operation.
The GSPC is the most structured group among Algerian Islamic insurgents battling the North African state since 1992 in a bid to topple the government. In recent years, it has turned its sights on jihad, or holy war, beyond Algerian borders.
- AP