 Four more people were detained in Paris Wednesday by anti-terrorist agents looking into the recruitment of Islamic extremists to join the insurgency in Iraq, bringing to 11 the number of arrests this week. | Nice work, French intel services. |
The four - all young men - were being held at the headquarters of the domestic intelligence service DST, along with six of the seven people detained on Monday in the working-class 19th arrondissement of the capital. The identities of the detainees were not disclosed, but officials said that eight of the nine men - all aged between 20 and 24 - were of north African origin with French nationality. The other was a French convert to Islam. They were arrested as part of an anti-terrorist investigation launched last September after evidence emerged of a so-called "Iraqi network" recruiting Islamic militants to fight US forces there. The foreign intelligence service DGSE has identified a French man, named only as Fawzi D., at the head of a group of some 20 Islamic militants in Iraq, officials said. The nine young men detained this week have known each other since childhood and attend the same prayer-halls and sports clubs, investigators said. They also have links with two brothers - Redouane and BoubakeurEl-Hakim - who played a key role in organising recruits for Iraq. Redouane, 19, was killed in July during the US bombardment of the Sunni town of Fallujah, and Boubakeur is being held in Syria after being caught trying to cross to Iraq. | "Whoops. Ya got me, coppers." |
The Hakim brothers frequented a prayer-hall in the northern Paris suburb of Levallois-Perret which has been shut down. The men held this week moved around the ad-Da'wa mosque in the 19th arrondissement, which officials said has become an important recruiting centre. The other three French nationals killed in Iraq were named as Tarek N. , Karim - also known as Abu Salman - and Abdelhakim B. They were killed in September and October in the so-called Sunni triangle to the north and west of Baghdad. |