french try to root out would be jihadists at home

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/E/EU_FRANCE_WANNABE_JIHADISTS?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2013-02-07-05-43-24

PARIS (AP) -- France, waging war against Islamist extremists in Mali, is on the hunt for would-be fighters at home, fearful that they will join militants in the conflict in its former African colony or take radical action on French soil.

With Iraq and Afghanistan no longer magnets for foreign fighters, officials say they worry that some angry youth among the country's large Muslim population are instead looking to test their radicalized faith on the battlefield in Mali or the Syrian civil war.

Police have rounded up youths they suspect of trying to join Islamist extremists in West Africa, arresting four this week, and expelled radical imams and others considered risks to public order. Authorities, who have long viewed France's Muslim community of at least 5 million with a special lens, say they fear they could trigger a spread of radicalization among Muslims in disaffected suburban housing projects where unemployment and resentment against state institutions is rife.

Moderate Muslims express concern that sweeps against suspected Islamist extremists risk stigmatizing all Muslims in France.