Baggage handler arrested at Paris airport

An anti-terrorism investigation was underway in Paris today after a baggage handler was arrested at the city’s Charles de Gaulle airport.

The 27-year-old man, who is reportedly of Algerian origin, was arrested on Saturday after two automatic weapons, plastic explosives and a detonator were found in his car.

He can be held for up to four days without charge, and other members of his family have been taken in for questioning.

The baggage handler reportedly lives in the northern Parisian suburb of Bondy. Police said he had no criminal record.

His arrest comes just days after the Interior Ministry said it had dismantled a terror cell with ties to Chechen rebels and al-Qaida that planned bomb or toxic gas attacks in France and Russia.

A total of nine people were arrested in half a dozen raids by France’s counter-intelligence agency, the DST, in suburban Paris.

Among the suspected targets were the Russian Embassy in Paris and Russians in the breakaway republic of Chechnya, the ministry said.

On alert for possible terror strikes over the holidays, the French government has increased police numbers in public areas like department stores, train stations and airports.

The British “shoe bomber”, Londoner Richard Reid, boarded a flight to Miami from Charles de Gaulle with explosives hidden in his trainers a year ago.