Paris, April 5 (Reuters): French police seized 13 people suspected of having links with suicide bomb attacks in Morocco in dawn raids today in the Paris suburbs.

The interior ministry said the 13 held for questioning were suspected of belonging to a militant Moroccan Islamic group that Spain suspects of having links with al Qaida and carrying out last month’s Madrid train bombings.

The ministry said in a statement, however, there was no indication those detained were themselves connected with the attacks that killed 191 people in Madrid on March 11.

“Thirteen people have been held in custody. They are suspected of being members of the Moroccan Islamic Combatant Group,” the statement said.

“These operations follow long investigations carried out by the DST (counter-intelligence network) in cooperation with its foreign partners. They have no link with the recent attacks in the Spanish capital,” it said.

The suspects can be held for up to 96 hours without being formally placed under investigation — the final step under French law before formal charges can be pressed.

Two other people were released after being detained in the raids carried out at about 0400 GMT in Aulnay-sous-Bois, a suburb east of Paris, and Mantes-la-Jolie west of the capital, judicial sources said.

Forty-five people were killed, including the bombers, in almost simultaneous attacks in Casablanca last May 16. Today’s raids were ordered as part of anti-terrorism investigations, including a probe into the death of a Frenchman in the attacks.

The Moroccan Islamic Combatant Group is a shadowy organisation believed to be tied to Osama bin Laden’s al Qaida network.

Spain is holding a number of people, many of them Moroccan, over the Madrid bombings. France, which has a large Muslim minority of about five million people, is on high alert following the Madrid attacks.

French authorities have also received threats in letters from a self-proclaimed Islamic group whose authenticity is in doubt.