(Tbilisi, December 28, 2002. Civil Georgia) - Suspected Islamist extremists arrested by French authorities during several pre-Christmas raids were planning terrorist strikes against the Russian Embassy in France and other Russian targets, France's Interior Ministry announced on December 27.

Associated Press reports the ministry identified several of the nine suspects, rounded up between Dec. 16 and Dec. 24, as North Africans who had allegedly spent time in Afghanistan or Georgia’s Pankisi gorge, and met with al Qaida operatives and Chechen extremists. All are now in French prisons.

On December 27 Russian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Alexander Yakovenko said, “the fact proves once again that there is close ties between the bandits in Chechnya and the terrorists in Georgia and in other part of the world.”

Russian official said that some of the terrorists suspects arrested in France might undergo training in Pankisi gorge.

Last month Georgian authorities announced that they have successfully completed anti-terror operation in the gorge squeezing militants out of the gorge.