Updated on
Summary A network of French Islamists behind attack on a market also planned to join jihadists in Syria.
A state prosecutor said this Thursday, calling the suspected terrorist group potentially the most dangerous established in France since the 1990s.Five of the 12 people arrested in sweeps in cities around France have been freed, said the prosecutor, Francois Molins. He said seven people remain in custody a day after police discovered bomb-making materials in an underground parking lot as part of a probe of an extremely dangerous terrorist cell. The seven, aged 19 to 25 years old, were all born in France, he said.The Sept. 19 attack on the market in Sarcelles, outside Paris, shattered windows and injured a customer at the store. It has revived French concerns that home-grown Islamic militants want to link with international jihad and carry out terrorism in France this time, notably, against Jewish targets.In the garage, investigators found rifles, ammunition, a bottle of candle wax, 3 kilograms of potassium nitrate, a bag of charcoal, 1-1/2 kilograms of sulfur, electric cables, batteries, five car headlight bulbs, and a pressure cooker, Molins said.French authorities have been on high alert for possible terror attacks by radical Islamists after Mohamed Merah, a Frenchman who claimed links to al-Qaida, shot and killed three Jewish children, a rabbi and three paratroopers in southern France in March.The case involves two components: The kosher grocery attack, and the recruitment network. The prosecutor wants seven charged in connection with the alleged network, and six of them in the grocery attack.
