PARIS: Police arrested 10 suspected Islamist militants in dawn raids across France on Wednesday after a shooting spree by an al Qaeda-inspired gunman prompted President Nicolas Sarkozy to order a security clampdown, just ahead of an April 22 election.
The DCRI domestic intelligence service, supported by elite police commandos, carried out arrests in the southern cities of Marseille and Valence, two smaller towns in the southwest, and in the northeastern town of Roubaix, a police source said.
The raids, which followed Friday’s arrest of 19 suspects, came 13 days after police snipers shot dead 23-year-old gunman Mohamed Merah, who had killed three Jewish school children, a rabbi and three soldiers in a spate of attacks around Toulouse.
‘Those arrested have a similar profile to Mohamed Merah,’ a local police source said. ‘They are isolated individuals who are self-radicalised.’
He said the suspects were tracked on Islamist forums expressing extreme views and said they were preparing to travel to areas including Afghanistan, Pakistan and the Sahel belt of West Africa to wage jihad (holy war). Some of those arrested had already visited these areas and returned to France, the source said.
Sarkozy, who faces an uphill task to win re-election in an April-May two-round vote, has vowed to root out any form of militancy following Merah’s killing spree.
Television channels showed images of the early morning raids, with police shown taking suspects away handcuffed and with their faces covered. Officials also confiscated bags and other items.
Some French media had been tipped off about the raids and police did not cordon off the areas ensuring mass coverage.
Thirteen of the 19 people arrested last Friday are alleged to have links to radical French Islamist group Forsane Alizza (Knights of Pride). They are being investigated on suspicion of terrorism, the Paris public prosecutor said on Tuesday.
Wednesday’s raids were not directly linked to either those arrests or the Merah attacks, the source said.
The Toulouse killings have lifted domestic security up the political agenda 2-1/2 weeks before the April 22 first-round vote and may have improved Sarkozy’s chances against Socialist rival Francois Hollande, who he trails in polls for the crucial May 6 runoff.
Sarkozy, a former hardline interior minister, has been accused by some opponents of capitalising on the Islamist threat for electoral purposes even though only 20 percent of voters consider it their main concern, surveys show.
Centrist election candidate Francois Bayrou accused the government of using the situation for its own political ends. (UNI)