Paris, Oct 24 (AP) French authorities today arrested a seventh suspect in probe into an alleged network recruiting Islamic fighters to send to Iraq, officials said. The 35-year-old Frenchman of African origin was arrested at Paris Charles de Gaulle airport, police said. He lives in Toulouse in southwest France, where most of the six other suspects were arrested yesterday. The men are all linked to a group arrested in February that allegedly worked with an al-Qaeda cell in Saudi Arabia, police officials said. An anti-terrorism unit made five of the arrests in the Toulouse region and one in the rural Lot region, officials said. All of the officials declined to be cited by name, saying they were not authorise to discuss the matter publicly.

The men were aged 25 to 45 and were close to six people arrested in February, two of whom were arrested in Syria and expelled to France, the officials said. They have all since been placed under investigation in the case. A probe was opened in February into a network recruiting fighters to be sent to Iraq. According to a scenario described by the prosecutor s office at the time, the recruits were initially sent to Egypt to learn Arabic and teachings of Salafists "in the most radical schools."

Via a cell implanted in Saudi Arabia and linked to al-Qaeda, the recruits then were put in touch with a network in Syria that took them to Iraq "to commit terrorist acts, notably suicide attacks." Belgian investigators are working with the French on the case, the judicial officials said, without elaborating.

Source : PTI