VILLIERS-LE-BEL (AFP) -- French police launched a major pre-dawn operation Monday north of Paris, targeting suspects believed to be behind attacks on police during riots last year, an AFP journalist said.

Nearly 1,000 elite forces took part in the operation in and around Villiers-le-Bel, 20 kilometers (12 miles) north of the capital, said sources close to the investigation.
Violence flared up in the area in late November last year after two teenagers died in a motorbike crash with a police car.
During the rioting, some officers were hit by gunfire and the clashes left 119 police officers injured, five of them seriously, according to justice ministry figures.
Tensions have run high in France's high-immigration suburbs since the 2005 riots, the country's worst civil unrest in decades, which pitted youths against police.