Police have detained five suspected Islamic militants as part of a French inquiry into the September 11 attacks, French judicial sources said yesterday.

The DST domestic intelligence agency arrested the five on Tuesday in Selestat and Colmar, in the eastern Alsace region, as part of an investigation led by anti-terrorist judges Jean-Louis Bruguiere and Jean-Francois Richard, the sources said.

Prosecutors suspect the five - two brothers, their parents and a friend of the family - of having links with Karim Mehdi, a Moroccan who is being investigated over a plot for a bomb attack on the French Indian Ocean island of Reunion.

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