PARIS, Dec 8: Ten people were arrested in France on the weekend after an anonymous caller warned that the US embassy in Paris was to be targeted by a car bomb attack, French police said on Monday.

The suspects — most of them Egyptians in France illegally — were detained on Sunday after the warning and remained in custody on Monday, officers from the anti-terrorist squad said.

Investigators were trying to verify whether the bomb warning was genuine or a hoax, a law enforcement source said.

Security was heightened around the embassy on Monday.

Officers said a man called the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) on Sunday and warned that an attack “with a vehicle filled with explosives” was going to be made later in the day against the embassy.

Guards and police at the embassy were reinforced as a result, and stepped-up checks of individuals and vehicles in the vicinity were carried out but nothing suspicious was found.

The caller gave the FBI a list of French telephone numbers that led police to addresses where the arrests were made.

A US embassy spokeswoman, Melissa Clegg-Trip, told AFP that “the embassy did receive a telephone threat over the weekend.”

“The personnel did meet with the French authorities and we decided we would work today, Monday,” Clegg-Tripp said. “We’re operating normally in all parts of the embassy.”

The spokeswoman said French police had increased security around the embassy Monday, including closing off traffic along the avenue that runs directly in front.

The embassy has previously been the target of a bomb plot, according to security agencies.

European intelligence services probing Islamic militant networks believe a group linked to Osama bin Laden had prepared a 1998 attack against the building.

A French-Algerian man, Djamel Beghal, reportedly told French officials in October 2001, after being extradited from the United Arab Emirates, that he had been recruited in Afghanistan to plan that attack, which would have involved driving a explosive-laden truck into the embassy.

Since the attacks on New York and Washington on September 11, 2001, US authorities have greatly tightened security around its diplomatic missions abroad.

The US embassy, built in 1933, is located on the Place de la Concorde in the centre of Paris, at the bottom of the famous Avenue Champs-Elysees and a stone’s throw from the French president’s official residence. The US consulate’s visa section is in a separate building on the other side of the square.—AFP