Four men who ran an Islamic extremist network that tried to plan attacks in Europe and send volunteers to fight in Iraq on Thursday were given jail terms of between two and six years each. The three Moroccans and a Frenchman of Algerian origin, all Muslims aged between 23 and 38 were convicted by a Paris court of "membership of a criminal organisation aimed at preparing terrorist acts." Moroccan Hamid Bach was jailed for six years and banned from French territory for 10 years. Investigators believe Bach travelled to Damascus in Syria with a friend from Montpellier in mid-2004. The friend continued to Iraq to join the then growing insurgency against US and Iraqi forces and was killed in fighting. Bach returned to France on a mission to plan attacks in Europe and North Africa. Investigators seized a large amount of evidence at his home in the southern city of Montpellier to back up the charges against him, including documents and chemicals used in the manufacture of explosives.
Moroccans Reda Barazzouk and Yousef Bouzag, accused of providing him with logistical back-up, received four and three-year prison sentences respectively - which Bouzag has already served in pre-trial detention. French national Amine Liassine, regarded as the ideological power behind the group, was handed a two-year jail term.
French authorities say their arrests, between June 2005 and January 2006 in Montpellier, allowed officers to thwart several potential terror attacks in Europe and North Africa.