Fourteen people were detained in Belgium and France today as part of an international probe into the killing of Afghan opposition commander Ahmad Shah Masood, slain two days before the September 11 attacks on the United States.
Twelve were detained in Belgium and two French nationals were arrested in France, sources close to the investigation said.
The arrests followed the issuing of an international warrant by a judge in Belgium, which is suspected to have been a point of passage for at least one of two men who killed Masood in a suicide bomb attack at his home in Afghanistan's Panshir valley on September 9th.
The alleged killers, who gained access to Masood by posing as journalists, were Moroccan citizens carrying Belgian passports stolen from consulates in Strasbourg and The Hague.
Belgian television RTL-TVI said that at least one of the suicide bombers had travelled to Brussels where he received assistance from all or some of the suspects detained today, a report neither confirmed nor denied by the Belgian authorities.
Legal sources in France said the two men arrested in France would not be extradited to Belgium, as France does not extradite its own citizens.
AFP