Natural Sound
Police have uncovered a plot by Islamic extremists to mount a bombing campaign against the World Cup football tournament this summer in France, The Sunday Times reported.
According to the British newspaper, World Cup brochures and a large quantity of liquid explosives were discovered during raids on houses in Brussels earlier this month.
The raids ended in a shoot-out and the arrest of seven suspected members of an Algerian terrorist group.
According to the Sunday Times report, international police think Islamic extremists were planning to mount a bombing campaign against the World Cup football tournament this summer in France.
Raids on houses in Brussels earlier this month ended in a shoot-out and the arrest of seven suspected members of an Algerian terrorist group.
Raymond Kendall, the British director of Interpol, was quoted as saying the arrested men appeared to be a support group supplying forged passports, weapons and money - not the unit designated to carry out the attack.
The world's top football tournament, held every four years, starts in June, and French officials have said security surrounding the tournament is a major concern.
One of the men arrested during the raids in Brussels, French-born Farid Melouk, was a key figure in a European network supplying arms, false papers and money to extremists in Algeria, Belgian authorities said.
According to the Sunday Times, police discovered explosives hidden in a bag of videotapes, five detonators, mercury - which can be used in explosive devices - a Kalashnikov rifle, and the equivalent of 16-thousand-670 dollars in cash.
Melouk was convicted in absentia by a Paris court on February 18 and sentenced to seven years in prison for "criminal association with a terrorist group" and "falsification of administrative documents."
He and the others who were arrested are thought to be members of a breakaway wing of the Armed Islamic Group, which has carried out massacres in Algeria.
