French police arrested six suspected Islamic radicals today as part of a crackdown on networks recruiting young Muslims for extremist groups.
A judicial source said the arrests in a northern Paris suburb were part of an inquiry into underground networks that may have sent Muslim youths for military training in Afghanistan before the Taliban regime was overthrown in November last year.
France's five-million-strong Muslim minority is Europe's largest. Many young men are believed to have gone from or through France on their way to train with the al-Qaeda group, blamed for the September 11th attacks on the United States.
Police arrested five other suspects on Friday and Saturday on charges of providing false passports, money and shelter to Islamic activists. The source said they belonged to a different network.
France began investigating the recruitment networks even before the September 11th attacks when it became clear to security officials that young men were leaving for military training in Afghanistan.
Five Frenchmen captured in Afghanistan or Pakistan are now held at the US military base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. They have confirmed they travelled via Britain to Afghanistan in the summer of 2001 to join Islamic radicals based there.