French justice officials have opened legal proceedings against seven of 12 alleged jihadists arrested in sweeps across France on Oct. 6, during which one suspect died in a shootout with police. Though insufficient evidence of terrorist plotting led to five of those individuals being freed on Oct. 11, officials said raids conducted the previous day — which uncovered guns, bombmaking materials and proof of intent to carry out strikes — allowed the other seven suspects to be placed indefinitely under detention as members of a “terrorism cell” determined to “commit attacks on national territory.” French authorities also revealed other evidence in the case corroborating TIME’s Aug. 31 exclusive report on the growing allure of the conflict in Syria among French Muslim extremists seeking jihadist experience. Some of the seven suspects remanded in custody intended to travel to Syria to fight alongside Islamist militants battling the regime of President Bashar Assad, according to authorities. Two were also described as having worked to recruit and facilitate travel of French extremists to Syria. Those developments on Thursday came a day after French authorities announced they had unearthed weapons in a Paris suburb and an array of materials that Paris prosecutor François Molins described as “useful in the making of what are known as improvised explosives.” The chemicals, pressure cookers, cables, alarm clocks and other components were reminiscent of homemade bombs used in the wave of attacks in France in 1995–96 that killed 13 and injured 281 — the last successful terrorist campaign in France using explosives. “In terms of dangerousness and extent of preparations, we’ve not seen any like this since 1996,” Molins said on Thursday in announcing the case against the seven suspects for “association with criminals involved in a terrorist enterprise.” He said a second legal dossier for “association with criminals seeking to join jihadist groups” had also been lodged against suspects who’d been planning to join combatants in Syria, or who’d helped others to do so. Molins said the seven suspects are 19 to 25 years of age, all French-born citizens and all recent![]()
