Six arrested in Paris anti-terror raids

Last updated at 10:47 15 June 2004


French anti-terror police have detained half a dozen people early today in raids on suspected Islamist groups in the Paris region, a judicial source said.

The raids were conducted as part of a preliminary inquiry launched by Paris anti-terrorist magistrates, the source said without giving precise numbers or other details.

The suspects were taken to the main police headquarters in the French capital.

Police made the arrests five days after Interior Minister Dominique de Villepin played down reports that the Paris metro had been singled out for attack by militants.

An Italian detention warrant seen by Reuters last week included transcribed telephone conversations in which suspects discussed the Paris metro, security arrangements and a "martyr" referred to as Mohammed.

French police said the information was too sparse to prove an attack was being prepared against the Paris metro system, which has been targeted by extremists before.

In July 1995, a bomb attack killed eight people and wounded 150 at the St Michel metro and suburban rail station in the bloodiest post-war attack in France. The attack was blamed on Algerian extremists.

In April this year, French police evacuated thousands of passengers from the urban rail network in Paris in a false bomb alert following a tip-off by a Central Intelligence Agency agent in Spain to the French counter-intelligence service, the DST.

Most watched News videos