PARIS, Jan. 13 (UPI) -- Islamist radicals on trial for terrorist plotting in France possessed two Russian surface-to-air missiles, one of them confessed.
Abu Atiya told French antiterrorist judges that his radical group had acquired the Russian arms to use in terrorist strikes in France, Le Figaro newspaper reported Friday.
The newspaper cited a French prosecutor's summary of the dossier as its source.
The confession will reportedly be used as a basis for trials targeting 29 suspected radicals slated for next spring.
French prosecutors say the missiles were furnished by Chechen guerrilla Rouslan Guelaiev, who was killed in 2004.
The missiles were intended to be used to strike civilian planes in France, the newspaper said.
They were transported by truck via Turkey. But all traces of the missiles disappeared after that, Le Figaro reported.
France has arrested dozens of suspected Islamic radicals in recent years, and police have allegedly uncovered numerous plots to strike French territory.
One, a few years ago, aimed to strike the U.S. embassy in Paris. Another targeted Paris-area airports among other sensitive French targets.
Extremists' cells have also tried to recruit people to join the insurgency in Iraq -- or to be trained for terrorist attacks on French soil.
France was the target of terrorist attacks in the 1980s and again in the mid-1990s. Those convicted were primarily Algerian radicals, angered by Paris' support of the military-backed government in Algeria.
But Islamist extremism has morphed to embrace dozens of different causes, including the insurgency in Chechnya, Afghanistan and Iraq and a larger war against the West.
