PARIS — A network of French Islamists behind a grenade attack on a kosher market also planned to join jihadists fighting in Syria, a state prosecutor said Thursday, calling the suspected terrorist group potentially the most dangerous established in France since the 1990s.
Five of the 12 people arrested in sweeps in cities around France have been freed, said the prosecutor, Francois Molins.
He said seven people remain in custody a day after police discovered bomb-making materials in an underground parking lot as part of a probe of an “extremely dangerous terrorist cell.”
The seven, aged 19 to 25 years old, were all born in France, he said.
The Sept. 19 attack on the market in Sarcelles, outside Paris, shattered windows and injured a customer at the store. It has revived French concerns that home-grown Islamic militants want to link with international jihad and carry out terrorism in France — this time, notably, against Jewish targets.
“The intent was to kill,” Mr. Molins said. “It was just lucky that it [the attack] didn’t have the consequences desired by the culprits.”
He noted that despite five days of questioning, when those held were mostly uncooperative, it was not clear whether the two culprits of the attack were in custody.
Nonetheless, the prosecutor hailed “the dismantling of a terrorist group that is probably the most dangerous brought to light in France since 1996.” Back then, Islamic militants linked to a bloody insurrection in former French colony Algeria carried out a series of bombings in France.
Mr. Molins said the bomb-making materials turned up in the underground garage could have been used in “exactly the same type of construction and mechanism used in 1995 by GIA activists” — the French acronym for the now-disbanded Armed Islamic Group in Algeria.
In the garage, investigators found rifles, ammunition, a bottle of candle wax, 6.6 pounds of potassium nitrate, a bag of charcoal, 3.3 pounds of sulfur, electric cables, batteries, five car headlight bulbs, and a pressure cooker, Mr. Molins said.
“We aren’t underestimating either the internal or the external threat,” French Justice Minister Christiane Taubira said in an interview with Europe 1 radio.
In Syria, most of those fighting against President Bashar Assad’s military are believed to be ordinary Syrians fed up with the authoritarian regime and soldiers who have defected, analysts say.
But increasingly, foreign fighters and those adhering to an extremist Islamist ideology are becoming involved. Two British nationals were arrested Tuesday at Heathrow Airport on suspicion of supporting terrorism in Syria.
French authorities have been on high alert for possible terror attacks by radical Islamists after Mohamed Merah, a Frenchman who claimed links to al Qaeda, fatally shot three Jewish children, a rabbi and three paratroopers in southern France in March.
French authorities opened a judicial investigation Thursday over the Sarcelles grocery attack for attempted murder, notably on the basis of the potential victims’ religion and in connection with a terrorist organization, the prosecutor said.
Related potential charges include the illegal possession of explosive devices, theft, use of stolen property, and illegal possession and transport of firearms.
It’s now up to investigating judges whether to file preliminary charges.
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