TA-THREATS: Mystery Group Threatens To Bomb French Railways

An unknown terrorist group is threatening to blow up sections of France�s railway if it is not paid a large ransom. The group has proven their capability by leading police to one of the bombs to show that they were serious. They police have found that the test bomb was professionally made and would destroy the track as promised.

Rueters
PARIS (Reuters) - A shadowy group is threatening to blow up sections of track in France's SNCF state railway network if it is not paid four million euros ($5 million), officials said Wednesday.
The group, calling itself AZF after a chemical factory in southwestern France that exploded in 2001, claims to have hidden 10 bombs around the network and has already directed police to a test model to prove its determination, officials said.
The puzzled officials ruled out links between Islamic or Chechen extremists and the hitherto unknown AZF group, which has sent six threatening letters since mid-December to the Interior Ministry and President Jacques Chirac.
"We know nothing about this group but we take these threats seriously," Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy told journalists. The group helped police find a time bomb on Feb. 21 that it had buried under tracks near Limoges in southwestern France. Police tested it and found it could destroy a section of track. SNCF chairman Louis Gallois told journalists that about 10,000 railway workers had begun inspecting all 20,000 miles of track in France "to check there are no bombs."

Paying the ransom would encourage future terrorist to so the same, the police can only hope to stall for time and try and locate the bombs or bombers before they detonate the bombs. Evidently the ransom notes have been arriving for several weeks, but the French have been trying to keep the information from the press. Railways schedules have not been changed, but now that the news is out this will no doubt affect travel in France.



[Edited on 3-3-2004 by dbates]

[Edited on 3-3-2004 by SkepticOverlord]

[Edited on 24-3-2004 by dbates]

UPDATE
France claims that they have finished searching 20,000 miles of railway and have found nothing. Was that the terrorist plan? I would say that this was a publicity stunt, except for the test bomb that they were told to find was....very real.

My wife had a vision a few months ago involving the chunnel. She has seen many things that have happened. Sometimes it's an airline crash. Just before 9/11 she had heard for days, while in a lite sleep wispering voices like in a large room that ecco's so many voices talking she could not make out what they were saying. After 9/11 nothing more.

The chunnel is where they should be looking!

Originally posted by energy_wave
The chunnel is where they should be looking!

Interesting thought. The Chunnel does have a rail line that goes through it. Since 23 miles of it is under water it would be devestating if an accident happened in there.