FRANCE: French police said yesterday an Algerian-born baggage handler arrested this weekend at Charles de Gaulle Airport with guns, explosives and detonators in the boot of his car, could have been planning an attack on an airliner.
Abdrazak Besseghir (27), who has no criminal record and no known links with radical Islamist groups, "could most certainly have been preparing a bomb attack or a hijacking", a police source said. "That is one possible line of inquiry, but so is that of organised crime."
Mr Besseghir was arrested late on Saturday after a witness told police they had seen him handling a gun in an airport car park. Police later found an automatic handgun, a machine-gun, five cakes of plastic explosive, two detonators and a slow-burning fuse in his car. "There was everything needed to put together an explosive that was ready for use," the source said. "What we have to establish is what he intended to do with it. At the moment he has told us almost nothing." Roissy-Charles de Gaulle Airport, which handles 100,000 passengers a day, is where Richard Reid, the British-born so-called shoe bomber, boarded a Paris-Miami flight almost a year ago with explosives hidden in his trainers.
As a baggage handler, Mr Besseghir had security clearance for several restricted areas of the airport close to planes. He was being held yesterday at the headquarters of the Paris anti-terrorist police, where suspects can be kept for four days without being placed under investigation or charged.
Police also searched his home in Bondy, north of the capital, and the flat of an ex-girlfriend, the source said. The suspect's father, two brothers and a family friend were arrested but were unable to explain the weapons, nor what Mr Besseghir planned to do with them.
The arrests come days after the French interior ministry said it had dismantled a terror cell, with links to Chechen separatists and the al-Qaeda network, which was allegedly planning bomb or toxic gas attacks in both France and Russia.
The nine suspected militants, held after six raids since December 16th, are accused of recruiting Muslims to train with al-Qaida, and of planning attacks on targets such as the Russian Embassy in Paris. Possible bomb-making devices and false identity papers were found in one flat.
France, on heightened alert for possible terrorist attacks during the festive season, has recently boosted police presence in public areas such as department stores, stations and airports.
Charles de Gaulle Airport has also tightened security since Reid's attempt to blow up the American Airlines plane. Some 200 of the airport's 55,000 staff had their security badges withdrawn after background checks, new explosives detectors have been installed and bomb-sniffing dogs now check all baggage.
The FBI warned last week that officials should stay alert to possible attempts to bring down planes with explosives hidden in clothing or shoes. - (Guardian Service)