Anti-Terror Sweep in France Leaves 1 Dead

Posted October 6th, 2012 at 4:45 pm (UTC-5)
Leave a comment

French officials say the man who was killed Saturday during a countrywide crackdown on terror suspects is linked to a grenade attack on a Jewish market outside Paris last month.

Paris prosecutor Francois Molins identified the man as Jeremy Sidney and said he was a 33-year-old delinquent who had converted to radical Islam. Sidney was killed in an exchange of fire in the eastern city of Strasbourg.

Police conducted raids across France after DNA on the grenade led them to the suspect in Strasbourg. When confronted, police say he opened fire on the officers, wounding several of them before he was shot and killed. Three police officers were wounded in the clash.

Molins said another 11 suspects, arrested during the raids in Paris, Cannes, Strasbourg, and elsewhere in France, were all recent converts to Islam.

French President Francois Hollande praised the police action and said the state is determined to protect the French people against any terrorist threat.

The September 19 attack on the Jewish market in the Paris suburb of Sarcelles slightly injured one person. It was the latest in a series of anti-Semitic attacks in France in recent months and has triggered strong reactions in the country's Jewish community.