Two Islamic militants jailed in France

Two Islamic militants have been given long jail sentences by a French court for carrying out armed attacks in France five years ago.

Boualem Bensaid, an Algerian, was jailed for thirty years for a failed bomb attack on a high-speed train from Lyon in south-west France to the capital, Paris.

Karim Koussa, of dual French and Algerian nationality, was given twenty years for taking part in two shoot-outs with police.

Both men are already serving terms for membership of a paramilitary group, after they helped to organise a wave of bombings in France in 1995 which killed ten people and injured two-hundred and fifty.

From the newsroom of the BBC World Service