French police arrest Iraq fighter suspects

PARIS (Reuters) - French authorities are holding five men arrested this week as part of an investigation into radical Islamist groups believed to be preparing to join Islamist fighters in Iraq, a police source said on Thursday.

Police arrested seven men on Tuesday in the southern cities of Toulouse, Carcassonne and Montpellier. Two of the suspects were released on Wednesday.

The arrests came in the same week as the start of a trial in Paris of seven other men accused of involvement in a network smuggling Islamist fighters to Iraq.

Police are seeking to establish whether the suspects arrested on Tuesday were in contact with a group arrested last year in eastern France.

French police have made several arrests of Islamist radicals whom they believe planned to fight in Iraq and French intelligence services have said that a number of French nationals have been killed while fighting there.

(Writing by James Mackenzie)