France arrests 5 in alleged terror plot

Five Russians have been arrested in southern France, including one with a cache of explosives, a local mayor said Tuesday as four other men appeared at a court in Paris, the first to face charges in the Paris terror attacks.

The reports came as the French prime minister asked his nation to do some soul-searching about the country's deep ethnic divisions and declared that fighting hatred, anti-Semitism and racism was an urgent priority, especially in France's impoverished housing projects.

Beziers Mayor Robert Menard confirmed the arrests Tuesday in Beziers and Montpellier of five men of Chechen origin and said the man arrested in Beziers had been a resident "for some time."

Midi Libre, the local paper, said an explosives cache was found in Beziers near a stadium but prosecutor Yvon Calvet told Midi Libre it wasn't immediately clear whether a terror attack was planned. Prosecutors planned a news conference later Tuesday.

France and much of Europe has been on high alert since the Jan. 9-12 attacks which started in Paris and left 20 people dead, including three Islamic extremist gunmen purportedly acting on behalf of an al Qaeda affiliate and the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS).

Around Europe

France:

In Paris, four men faced preliminary charges Tuesday on suspicion of links to one of slain terrorists, Amedy Coulibaly. Three French gunmen including Coulibably carried out the attacks in the Paris region, targeting the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo, police and a kosher supermarket.

The Paris prosecutor's office said the four men in court Tuesday, the first to face charges in the Paris terror attacks, are suspected of providing logistical support to Coulibaly.

Coulibaly shot a policewoman to death on the outskirts of Paris and then seized hostages inside a kosher supermarket, killing four before he was killed by police.

It is not clear whether the suspects, all in their 20s, were involved in plotting the attacks or even aware of Coulibaly's plans.

Prime Minister Manuel Valls told journalists Tuesday that the attacks should force France to look at the "apartheid" within. The conservative Socialist whose hard line on Islamic extremism has won many fans said he wasn't making excuses for crime or terrorism, "but we also have to look at the reality of our country."

Valls said memories have dimmed of the three weeks of riots by disaffected youths in 2005 that shook France.

"And yet, the stigmas remain ... a territorial, social and ethnic apartheid that has imposed itself on our country," he said. "The social misery is compounded by the daily discriminations, because someone does not have the right name, the right color of skin, or because she is a woman."

In response to the 2005 riots, the French government spent hundreds of millions of euros (dollars) to improve conditions in its rundown suburbs, with little success. Unemployment among young people in the housing projects is well above the national average and state buildings are often targeted for vandalism and arson.

"The fight against hatred, anti-Semitism in all its forms, racism - these fights are absolutely urgent," Valls said. Young people who refused to take part in a national minute of silence for the terror attack victims "are symptoms of something that is not going well."

Belgium:

In Athens, an Algerian man suspected of jihadi terrorist links in Belgium appeared before a Greek prosecutor Tuesday for an extradition hearing on being sent to Belgium.

The suspect, an Algerian man whose name was not released, was detained Saturday in Athens, where he lives. Belgium launched a large anti-terrorism sweep last week, during which two suspects were killed and one wounded, that netted several returnees from Islamic holy war in Syria.

Belgian media reported the suspect arrested in Greece, suspected of a connection to the plot uncovered in the eastern town of Verviers, had agreed to be extradited to Belgium "to prove his innocence."

CBS News' Charlie D'Agata reported Monday that as authorities continue the hunt for suspects in the plot, there's one man in particular who stands out. Belgian media have identified him as Abdelhamid Abaaoud, a 27-year-old Belgian citizen of Moroccan descent and the suspected ringleader of the plan to kill police.

He's well known to security forces, and last year he appeared in an amateur video purportedly from Syria. Last month, social media sites said Abaaoud was killed fighting for ISIS. So it came as a shock to police when they turned up recent phone calls made by Abaaoud, very much alive.

D'Agata tried to speak with Abaaoud's father at his home in Brussels on Monday, but he wasn't interested in giving an interview.

Germany:

Some 200 police officers raided 13 homes in Berlin and elsewhere in Germany Tuesday, in connection with the arrests last week of two suspected members of an Islamic terror cell.

Police spokesman Michael Gassen said the raids were mostly on close associates of the pair.

"We were looking for further evidence in connection with last week's arrests," Gassen said, adding that the people targeted Tuesday were not accused of any wrongdoing themselves. Most were members of the same mosque in Berlin's Moabit neighborhood as the two suspects.

Last week's raids were part of a months-long investigation into a small group of Turkish extremists based in Berlin.

Police on Friday arrested the group's leader, identified only as 41-year-old Ismet D. in accordance with privacy laws, who is accused of recruiting largely Turkish and Russian nationals to fight against "infidels" in Syria.

They also arrested Emin F., 43, who is accused of being in charge of finances.