French arrest five in shoe bomb case

PARIS -- French anti-tertorist police rounded up five people on Wednesday who are suspected of providing assistance to alleged shoe bomber Richard C. Reid in Paris, the second such sweep in two months.

The arrests came as officials in Germany said they had received intelligence of a possible al-Qaida plot to shoot down civilian airliners. Separately, Indian officials claimed they had evidence of an imminent al-Qaida attack on financial institutions in Bombay. And Britain said it was forming a 6,000-strong reaction unit in case of a Sept. 11-style attack.

Two Pakistanis and three North Africans with alleged sympathies to radical Islam were taken into custody at dawn in the Paris suburbs, police officials said on condition of anonymity. Several may also have had French citizenship.

They were being questioned at Paris police headquarters. During the sweeps in Evry and a notoriously rough neighborhood of Mantes-la-Jolie, authorities found radical pamphlets and three guns, the officials said.

Reid, a 28-year-old British citizen, is being held in the United States, and French police have been conducting their own investigation to track his activities in France before he allegedly tried to ignite his explosive-stuffed sneakers on a Paris-Miami flight in December.

Le Monde newspaper reported the suspects detained Wednesday were identified by people arrested in a previous roundup. The new suspects had allegedly been seen with Reid eight months to a year before he boarded the flight.

Though police believe Reid had logistical support in the French capital, they have so far been unable to track down solid evidence, Le Monde reported.

In April, French police took seven Pakistanis into custody on suspicions they had helped Reid. Six were later released, and the seventh, who was in France illegally, was sent back to Pakistan, the newspaper said.

In Germany, a warning was triggered when a civilian intercepted radio traffic in the Middle East of someone talking about the possibility of attacks on airliners in Germany, said Udo Buehler, spokesman for the Hesse state criminal investigation agency.

A spokesman for the German Interior Ministry, Rainer Lingenthal, said there was no evidence a specific plot was in the planning stages, but added: "Of course we take this information seriously."

An internal report by the Hesse state criminal investigation agency outlined how al-Qaida members might bring down an airliner in Germany, the mass-circulation newspaper Bild reported.

The report said terrorists could use heat-seeking ground-to-air missiles or an unmanned drone aircraft carrying explosives to down a jetliner during takeoff or landing, Bild reported.

The report cited in Bild was compiled several weeks ago. When asked why authorities had not publicized the warning earlier, Lingenthal said: "The fact remains that there are no specific indications for any kind of an attack in Germany."

In India, police and banking officials said authorities had evidence that al-Qaida planned to attack financial institutions in Bombay in the next eight to 10 days.

"This is the first time we have received a specific threat of a plan to target financial institutions. The warnings we usually get are general ones," said O.P. Bali, a police director-general. "Basically, it is a threat from the al-Qaida."

India's central bank, the Reserve Bank of India, issued a warning Monday to all banks and financial institutions that stressed the need for heightened security measures.

The warnings in India and Germany came just two days after Attorney General John Ashcroft announced the May arrest of an American, Jose Padilla, on suspicion of plotting to set off a radiological "dirty" bomb in the United States. Padilla, 31, also known as Abdullah al Muhajir, was taken into custody at Chicago's O'Hare airport as he returned from Pakistan.

On Wednesday, Pakistani officials said an alleged accomplice of Padilla was in custody. A senior Pakistani intelligence official named the suspect as Benjamin Ahmed Mohammed, and said he had been questioned by FBI agents.

A U.S. official in Washington confirmed that at least one associate of Padilla has been taken into custody and is being questioned in a foreign country, but that he was unaware of a Benjamin Ahmed Mohammed being interrogated.

Meanwhile, the British government said it will form an anti-terrorism military reaction unit to deal specifically with any Sept. 11-style attack. Defense Secretary Geoff Hoon said volunteers from the Royal Navy, Royal Marines, army and Royal Air Force would back up civil authorities in the event of a terrorist attack.