French police have arrested at least 17 people early Friday morning over suspected links to militant Islamist circles in several cities across the country, including Nantes, Le Mans, Toulouse, and the suburbs of Paris.
| Apparently the French didn't read the New York Times piece cautioning them about the imminent dangers of anti-Muslim hysteria... |
Days after Sarkozy ordered a crackdown on Islamist extremists, France's DCRI domestic intelligence agency, along with the national police's elite RAID unit, conducted the raids across France.
| Sarko definitely didn't get the memo... |
Cédric Delage, the Toulouse regional secretary for the French police union, said the DRCI conducted the raids "to look for groups or individuals who may be dangerous to the French state."
Delage said it was still too early to say if there was a direct link between Friday's arrests and the Merah case. "Further investigation and questioning of the suspects will reveal more information in the hours to come," he said.
Friday's raids in Toulouse were concentrated in the suburb of Mirail. According to the website of Le Monde, the arrests led to the seizure of three Kalashnikovs, a pistol and a grenade, along with other arms.
Police also conducted raids in the western city of Nantes, home to the leaders of Forsane Alizza (Knights of Pride), a banned Islamist organization that French media reports have linked to Merah. According to one source, the arrests included Forsane Alizza's leader, Mohammed Achamlane.
Forsane Alizza was banned on February 29, 2012, by French Interior Minister, Claude Gueant. The group has been known for its provocative demonstrations, such as last year's protests against a French ban on worshippers praying in the streets.
According to researcher Jean-Yves Camus, Forsane Alizza is a group comprised mainly of young people who have been recently radicalized. He said, "Members of Forsane Alizza espouse jihadism and Salafism, but they have very little knowledge of Islam. They are primarily an attention-seeking group that wants to get noticed."
| So apparently the combination of French socialist secular education, French socialist civil indoctrination, and French socialist society failed to prevent the 'radicalization' of French-born youts of Arab ethnic origin. Wonder what proportion of French socialists will admit publicly that their policies have failed? |
Camus
| No, not that one, another one... |
said he observed a recent protest outside the Paris mayor's office against extremist Christians when Forsane Alizza members showed up in "Afghan outfits". He said, "They did not try to hide, but rather they wanted to be filmed and photographed as much as possible."
Forsane Alizza first made news in June 2010, when ten of its members organized a boycott of McDonald's in the central French city of Limoges, calling the US company a "slave of Israel". A few months ago also, the group burned copies of France's civil codes to protest the law banning the burqa. |