Bomb At Jewish Cemetery In France

An unexploded homemade bomb was found in a Jewish cemetery in eastern France Friday, the latest in a series of assaults against Jewish sites that has included several arson attacks around the country.

Police said the bomb was found in a cemetery in the Cronenbourg district of Strasbourg -- the same graveyard arsonists attacked earlier this week. Last weekend oil was set ablaze on the door of a nearby synagogue.

In southern France, three men admitted throwing gasoline bombs and setting ablaze a building containing a synagogue in the city of Montpellier earlier this week, police said.

Police detained five people for questioning after two Molotov cocktails were hurled at a synagogue outside Paris, officials said Friday.

The fire bombs were thrown at a synagogue in the Paris suburb of Kremlin-Bicetre overnight Wednesday but failed to hit their apparent target and crashed onto a nearby sidewalk without causing damage, officials from the Val de Marne region said.

Officials said the detentions proved that heightened security at Jewish institutions is working. The identities of those detained were not released.

The recent spate of attacks, which some Jewish leaders link directly with Israel's military response to an 18-month Palestinian uprising, has prompted Prime Minister Lionel Jospin to order police guards on Jewish sites.

The three men being questioned in Montpellier were aged between 19 and 35 and arrested after they drove slowly by the office building that had been set on fire, police said.

A gasoline-soaked torch allegedly was found in their car.

Investigators believe the suspects intended to attack the synagogue in the same building but had torched the local government environment agency on the ground floor by mistake. The fire was quickly put out and no one was injured.