When United States customs officials arrested Ahmed Ressam near Seattle last week after he came off a ferry from Canada in a car they say was loaded with jars of nitroglycerin, timing devices and other bomb-making materials, American intelligence officials knew little about him.

But the arrest set off alarms in France, where antiterrorist officials had been focusing on the 32-year-old Mr. Ressam because of his connections to a loosely organized group of Islamic radicals that French investigators suspect had carried out a series of attacks on supermarkets, armored security vehicles and banks in northern France in 1996. Full Story

This is an excellent story, but requires free NY Times registration.