French Police Release Three Women, Nine Others Detained

French police have released three women arrested Friday and will continue to interrogate nine others who were detained in an anti-terror sweep connected to last week's attacks in Paris that has put Europe on high alert.

Paris prosecutor spokesman Denis Fauriat said the nine suspects will have their interrogations prolonged by 48 hours, a step allowed under France's tough anti-terror laws.

Police in France, Germany, Belgium and Ireland have arrested dozens of suspects in recent days as part of the crackdown on terrorism sparked by last week's bloody spree in and around Paris, in which brothers Said and Cherif Kouachi and their friend Amedy Coulibaly killed 17 people at the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo, a kosher grocery, and elsewhere.

Fallout from the attacks has spread around the world. Demonstrations in support of the murdered Charlie Hebdo journalists have been held in countries from the United States to Brazil, and violent protests against the magazine's depictions of the Prophet Muhammad have taken place in Niger, Pakistan and Algeria.

French authorities banned an anti-Islamist demonstration in Paris Sunday, and a German group protesting what it calls "the Islamization of the West" called off a rally planned in the eastern city of Dresden on Monday after a terrorist threat against one of its organizers.

Meanwhile, Italy's interior minister said that nine suspected jihadis have been expelled from the Mediterranean country since December, and vowed more expulsions in a heightened crackdown on terrorism.