‘Terrorists planned attack on planes’

"Terrorists planned to attack aircraft in France" with two Russian-made surface-to-air SAM-18 missiles that have gone missing in Europe, the daily said.

Without giving sources for the report, the newspaper said French authorities learned of the plot from a "high-ranking jihadi (fighter following a holy cause) imprisoned in Amman, Jordan."

The man, a Jordanian identified as Adnan Muhammad Sadik, alias Abu Atiya, was recently interviewed as part of a French inquiry led by anti-terror judge Jean-Louis Bruguiere looking into international recruiting networks for the rebellion in Chechnya, it said.

Sadik, the newspaper said, was "close to his compatriot (Abu Musab) Zarqawi, chief of al-Qaeda in Iraq."

He reportedly inducted a group of Algerians and Frenchmen in 2001 who wanted to return to Europe to carry out attacks using "all means at their disposal: toxic products, and also missiles."