Authorities arrest 12 tied to Paris terrorist attacks, Kerry visits a ‘big hug’
French police arrested 12 people on Friday suspected of helping militant Islamist gunmen in last week’s killings in Paris, where visiting U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry laid wreaths at two main attack sites.
The arrests came after Belgian police killed two men and detained 13 suspects on Thursday in raids on an Islamist group prosecutors said was about to attack police there.
Two related suspects were arrested in France and German police arrested two people after raiding 12 properties linked to radical Salafists. No link between any of them and the Paris attacks was confirmed.
John Kerry met with Francois Hollande as Paris police arrested a dozen in connection to recent terrorist attacks
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Seventeen victims and the three attackers died in three days of violence in Paris last week that began with an assault on the offices of satirical paper Charlie Hebdo.
“A total of 12 persons were detained, most of whom were known to the police for common crimes,” French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said of Friday’s police action, relating it to last week’s attacks. Judicial sources said the eight men and four women were detained in the greater Paris area.
Paris’s Gare de l’Est train station was evacuated for about an hour during the morning rush, the SNCF state railway said, without giving further details about the alert.
Kerry greeted President Francois Hollande on Friday morning with a hug at the Elysee presidential palace. He said on Thursday his visit was to give a “big hug” to Paris.
“You have the full and heartfelt condolences of the American people and I know you know that we share the pain and the horror of everything that you went through,” Kerry told Hollande.
“Once again, France, through its commitment to freedom and to the passion of ideas, has made an important statement to the world,” he said.
Hollande called the shootings France’s 9/11, referring to the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks in New York, and said: “Together we need to find the right responses and this is the purpose of our meeting here today, beyond the friendship.”
