France: jihadist round-up nets 19 and cache of weapons

19 misunderstanders of the religion of peace.  Is there no Islamic cleric or scholar that can explain to these 19 how they are not getting Islam?

Ibrahim Hooper?  Reza Aslan?  John Esposito?  Karen Armstrong?  Anybody?

From the Ottawa Citizen March 30 by Charles Sicurani and Nicolas Gaudichet

French police arrests 19 people in a bid to crackdown suspected Islamists

PARIS — French police swooped down on suspected Islamist networks Friday, arresting 19 people as President Nicolas Sarkozy vowed a crackdown would continue after an extremist gunman's killing spree.

The arrests took place in several cities including Toulouse, where Mohamed Merah was shot dead by police last week after a series of cold-blooded shootings in southwestern France that left seven dead.

Sarkozy said the arrests targeted "radical Islam" and that the trauma in France after the shootings in Toulouse and Montauban was somewhat like that felt in the United States after the September 11, 2001 attacks.

"What must be understood is that the trauma of Montauban and Toulouse is profound for our country, a little — I don't want to compare the horrors — a little like the trauma that followed in the United States and in New York after the September 11, 2001 attacks," he told Europe 1 radio.

Agents from France's DCRI domestic intelligence agency working with anti-terror and elite police units carried out the dawn raids in Toulouse, Nantes, Marseille, Lyon, Nice, Paris and other areas.

The operation "is not linked only to Toulouse, it's on all of French territory, is linked with a form of radical Islam and is in full accordance with the law," Sarkozy said.

He said Friday's operation was only the start.

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