A suspected recruiter of young Muslims for combat in Iraq and a man identified as a volunteer allegedly plotted attacks against French or foreign interests in France, the prosecutor's office said Friday. Under questioning, the two men "evoked the possibility of actions in France without identifying precise targets," a statement by the prosecutor's office said. The statement was released shortly after the men, of North African origin, were placed under investigation - a step short of being charged - as part of a probe into alleged networks suspected of dispatching Islamic combatants from France to Iraq.Farid Benyettoun, 23, identified as an alleged recruiter, and Thamer Bouchnak, 22, a suspected volunteer for combat, were placed under investigation for "criminal association with a terrorist enterprise," judicial officials said. The broad charge allows investigators to hold suspects while they move forward with their probe. A third man, who was not identified, was expected to be placed under investigation Saturday on the same count. The three were among a group of 10 people detained Monday and Wednesday in the investigation of alleged networks in France funneling militants to Iraq. The three were from the same Paris neighborhood as three French citizens who died while fighting as insurgents in Iraq, a French intelligence official said.
The prosecutor's office provided no details on the alleged plot, saying the network allegedly "fomented attack projects on national territory against French or foreign interests." However, investigators noted the two men under investigation so far only spoke of the possibility of "violent actions" in France without defining targets. No explosives were found when the men were detained, the investigators said. The other seven people detained this week were being released, judicial sources said. The judicial and intelligence sources had portrayed the group mounted to funnel insurgents to Iraq as mainly a project among militant neighborhood comrades. One investigator said that at least seven people, including the three French killed in Iraq, used the network to reach their destination. A police official said the arrests "broke the network." Benyettoun was the brother-in-law of a man deported to Algeria in 2004 for his alleged links to the Algerian insurgency movement, the Salafist Group for Call and Combat, known as the GSPC, the sources said.