25 June 2004	Friday	06 Jamadi-ul-Awwal 1425

HAGENAU, June 24: Neo-Nazi vandals have struck at the Muslim minority in the Alsace region of eastern France, desecrating 48 graves of soldiers with swastikas and "SS" inscriptions, officials said on Thursday.

The vandals smashed seven Muslim gravestones overnight in the military cemetery in this town north of Strasbourg, capital of the region which has seen about a dozen graffiti attacks on Muslim, Jewish and Christian sites in recent weeks.

President Jacques Chirac denounced the desecrations as "an insult to the memory of the soldiers who gave their lives for our country" and vowed the state would track down the vandals and have them brought to justice.

His statement came shortly after Dalil Boubakeur, head of the French Council of the Muslim Faith, called on authorities to do everything to arrest those responsible for what he called "this unbearable Islamophobic event."

Earlier on Thursday, Interior Minister Dominique de Villepin expressed "indignation at this new manifestation of hate, which is particularly unbearable because it concerns soldiers who made the supreme sacrifice to defend the freedom of France."

A desecration of Muslim graves in Strasbourg last week prompted Chirac to announce a new drive to end ethnic intolerance in France. Villepin visited local Muslim leaders after that attack to announce the creation of an interfaith committee to work towards greater tolerance and understanding. -Reuters