Shoebomber connections
The arrest by French police of eight suspected Islamists connected with British shoebomber Richard Reid is part of a wider crackdown bringing the total up to 19 in the past week alone, writes David Tresilian in Paris
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A refugee leaves the Red Cross-run refugee camp as French police officers look on. The refugee camp, which served as a stepping stone for illegal immigration to Britain, will close at the end of December
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French police last week raided a Paris mosque run by the French-Pakistani Intercultural Association, arresting eight suspected Islamists alleged to be connected with the British "shoebomber" Richard Reid, who is accused of attempting to blow up an American Airlines Paris-Miami flight with 197 people on board on 22 December last year by setting fire to explosives hidden in his shoes.
The police move, described by a spokesman as "planned long ago" and carried out in the early hours of the morning by three truckloads of riot police, follows the arrest last June of three people, two French citizens and one Pakistani national, accused of helping Reid during his five-day stay in Paris before the attempted attack.
Since Reid's arrest in Miami last year following his failed attempt to destroy the American Airlines plane, French police have been making efforts to trace his movements during his stay in France prior to the bombing attempt.
Reid, 29, born in London, converted to Islam while in prison for petty theft, later getting involved with extremist Islamist elements, according to Abdul-Haqq Baker, chairman of the South London Brixton Mosque Reid attended, then visiting Holland, Belgium, Israel, Egypt, Turkey, Pakistan and Afghanistan for unknown reasons before his attempted December 2001 bombing.
Zacarias Moussaoui, a French national of Moroccan origin, the only person so far charged with involvement in the 11 September 2001 attacks on New York and Washington, who faces the death penalty in the United States if found guilty in his impending trial, attended the same mosque during his stay in London in the 1990s.
While it is not thought that Reid is an important member of Al-Qa'eda, according to American investigators he could have significant information on the network's organisation and on the logistical support it receives in Western Europe, which the current French arrests are designed to investigate.
The Paris arrests came following two further series of arrests of alleged Islamists in the Paris suburbs last weekend.
On 25 November, 100 police encircled an apartment in the north Paris suburb of Seine-Saint-Denis at six in the morning, arresting 27-year-old Franco-Algerian national Slimane Khalfaoui and five others, including two women, wanted in connection with planning a failed terrorist attack in Strasbourg in Eastern France during Christmas 2000.
Four men of Algerian nationality, described as being members of an Islamist terrorist group with connections to Ossama Bin Laden's Al-Qa'eda network, of which Khalfaoui is also accused of being a member, have already been arrested by German police in Frankfurt.
During the weekend of 22 and 23 November a second series of arrests of a further five suspects were also made in northern Paris and in the suburbs.
French police said that the five were members of a network dealing in false identity papers that had been under surveillance for some time. The arrests came when it was discovered that Redouane Daoud, wanted in the Netherlands on terrorism charges and alleged to be connected with the killing of Afghan leader Ahmed Shah Massoud in 2001, was a part of this network.
According to French authorities there is "no connection" between the three series of arrests, which have now led to the detention of some 20 people on charges related to Islamist terrorism in Paris over the past week alone.
A spokesman said the operations had taken place at the same time "by chance", there being "no link" between them. However, "since the terrorist threat is continuing, even if imprecise, we cannot take the risk of letting jihadists trained in Afghanistan loose."
The police operations, which come following renewed fears of Islamist terrorist attacks in Europe over the Christmas period, were described by French Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy as having been "very well done", testifying to the "quality of the French intelligence services".
On 12 November a new tape, allegedly of Ossama Bin Laden and released to the world's media, promised new Al-Qa'eda attacks in Europe. According to a report by the French Intelligence Services made public on 14 November, the threat of Al-Qa'eda attacks is greatest in the United Kingdom, which has strongly backed the US-led war on terrorism, followed by continental European countries.
Few details have been released of the latest arrests, or of the connections between the first group of detainees and Richard Reid. However, a business card found on Reid after his arrest bore the name of a Pakistani restaurant near the mosque in Paris targeted for last week's arrests.
Pakistani national and Muslim Imam Ghulam- Mustafa Rama, arrested in June, is alleged to be a senior figure in the Lashkar-e-Taiba movement, described as being linked to terrorist acts in Kashmir and part of the International Islamic Front for Holy War against Jews and Crusaders, a group linked to Ossama Bin Laden's Al-Qa'eda network that sends volunteers from Europe to Pakistan for training, allegedly in terrorist- style attacks.
Reid himself is currently being detained in the United States and pleaded guilty to eight charges before a judge in Boston on 4 October, describing himself as "on the side of Ossama Bin Laden" and "an enemy of your country [the United States]". Reid's guilty plea means that he will now be sentenced without trial in January 2003. He pleaded guilty, according to his lawyers, in order to avoid the publicity of a trial and the negative impact this could have on his family.
According to the FBI, Reid's home-made bomb, if placed next to the fuselage of the plane and successfully detonated, could have been enough to cause a large hole, potentially endangering the plane. Had he used a lighter instead of matches to light the bomb used in the attack, he would probably have been successful.
