PARIS: The French authorities began to use new, sweeping counterterrorism powers to halt the stream of young people going to Syria, confiscating the passports of six people suspected of trying to go there to engage in terrorist activities.
The interior minister, Bernard Cazeneuve, announced that the ministry had taken six people’s passports under the new law and that the ministry was preparing travel bans for 40 more people.
If French citizens leave to commit atrocities in Iraq and in Syria, when they return, they represent an even bigger danger for the national territory and they are likely to commit terrorist acts on a major scale,” Mr. Cazeneuve said.
Islam Yaken at a gym in Cairo, left, and as a fighter with the Islamic State extremist group in Syria, where he has been since 2013.From a Private School in Cairo to ISIS Killing Fields in Syria (With Video)FEB. 18, 2015
The law, approved in November, includes a provision that allows the French authorities to impose what is in effect a travel ban on anyone they suspect of leaving the country for the purpose of engaging in terrorist activities. The ban lasts six months, at which point the government can renew it every six months for up to two years. The ban can be appealed.
