France Arrests More Islamists in Aftermath of Jewish School Shooting and Murder of Partroopers

French counterterrorism police launched a series of predawn raids throughout the country on Friday, taking into custody 19 suspected Islamists who reportedly had training in Afghanistan or Pakistan.

President Sarkozy had promised a crackdown and he explained today the raids were 'in connection with a form of Islamist radicalism.

'There will be other operations that will continue and that will allow us to expel from our national territory a certain number of people who have no reason to be here.'

A police investigator said that the anti-terrorist unit of the Criminal Brigade detained five men before dawn in Paris who had suspected links to an Islamist movement. Weapons were also seized, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity in line with the department's rules.

The other arrests took place in Toulouse, Marseilles, Nantes and Lyon, the official said.

In Nantes, Mohammed Achamlane, the head of Forsane Alizza (Knights Of Pride), a radical Muslim group that formed two years ago, was among the detained. French officials had banned the group in February. President Sarkozy had promised a crackdown and he explained today the raids were 'in connection with a form of Islamist radicalism.

In addition to the raids, French officials barred radical Islamic clerics from Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the Palestinian Territories from entering the country for an Islamic group's conference.

On Monday, French officials announced that some of the detained Islamists were suspected of planning to carry out the kidnapping a Jewish magistrate in Lyon.

Last week, Al-Jazeera's Paris bureau received a USB drive from Toulouse gunman Mohammed Merah showing footage of him carrying out the murders in front of the Ozar Hetorah school.

The Qatar-based network declined to air it or share with other networks, but investigators were reviewing the footage to see if Merah had any accomplices that are shown in the video. It was initially thought that Merah might've sent the video to Al Jazeera, but French investigators believe that Merah didn't mail the video himself, raising the likelihood of an accomplice.

After the school shootings, police were led to Merah's brother due to an bogus internet ad about a scooter for sale meant to lure one of the earlier known victims into an ambush being traced back to his computer. He was taken into custody around the same time as the standoff at Mohammed's apartment began.