Two persons, believed to be member of the Black September gang, who were arrested by French criminal police Saturday may be the terrorist organization’s leaders in France, according to unconfirmed reports today. Police have refused to disclose any details of the arrests or to say whether the two detainees are both men or if they are, as one report claimed, a man and a woman.
Sources close to French counter-intelligence agencies said it was highly unlikely that the Black September has established its headquarters or even operational bases on French territory.
There has been no official confirmation either of the general belief that Saturday’s arrests stemmed from the detention last week of two Arabs described as Jordanians who were carrying large quantities of explosives in their car with the alleged intentions of blowing up the Jordanian and Israeli Embassies in Paris. According to one report, the Jordanians were delivering the explosives to the two persons arrested Saturday.
An El Fatah spokesman in Beirut said yesterday that the pair arrested with the carload of explosives were not members of his organization and had not been entrusted to carry explosives for El Fatah. A Fatah communique carried by the Palestinian news agency, “Wafa,” claimed that the incident was part “of a general plan by counter revolutionary forces to undermine the Palestinian revolution.”
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