Shadowy group threatens to bomb French railway

Reuters ^ | 3/3/04

[mountaineer]

Maybe it's the French-looking Jean Quierry trying to raise some quick campaign cash from his friends.

[marron]

http://www.danielpipes.org/article/431

Hassan Jandoubi, an Islamist with possible connections to al Qaeda, had started working at the AZF fertilizer factory in suburban Toulouse, France, just days before a massive explosion took place there last Sept. 21. This, the worst catastrophe ever in a French chemical plant, killed Jandoubi and 29 others, injured 2,000, destroyed 600 dwellings, and damaged 10,000 buildings.

The autopsy revealed that Jandoubi was wearing two pairs of trousers and four pairs of underpants, which the coroner compared to what is worn by "Islamic militants going into battle or on suicide missions." Also, the chemical plant was processing ammonium nitrate, a stable chemical that requires a substantial infusion of energy to explode.

Ignoring these signs, the French authorities declared there was "no shred of evidence" of the explosion being a terrorist act and ruled it an accident. They even prosecuted two publications merely for calling Jandoubi a "radical Islamist," making them pay tens of thousands of dollars in fines to Jandoubi's heirs, a mosque and a Muslim organization for their "defamation" of Jandoubi.

[marron]

Post 22 should be all in quotes, it is taken from Daniel Pipes' site...

[null and void]

Zees are re-BELLS! Zey pro-BAB-ly drink ze California Char-DO-nay as well!pftui!

How soon they forget that every french vine came from California cuttings after disease destroyed french viniculture in the late 1800's.

french wines ARE California wines...

[swarthyguy]

We speculated that this was a jihadi attack.

The other one that sticks out in my mind was when the small airplane ran into a passenger jet at Milan airport shortly after 9.11.

Heavy fog was blamed.

And that Egyptian guy in a container who absconded after being granted bail in Italy.

Will we ever find out the full scale of the 2001 Attacks.

[happygrl]

Last year, I was exchanging posts on FR with a French poster (A self desribed scientist) about terrorism in Europe and I mentioned the Chemical plant explosion.

He concurred that it was believed to be terrorism, despite the public protestations that it wasn't. With 10% of their population being Muslim, there are so many more opportunities for this sort of thing to happen there.

With the headscrarf ban, the French have postioned themselves to be a target for the Islamics. I was glad to see them finally show some courage towards the Arab/Muslim world, instead of their usual obsequiousness.

Unfortunately, their chances of being the target of more nasty accidents just increased.

[hershey]

France has been paying extortion money to Islamic terrorists for years. In other words, bomb somebody else, not us. Presumably, they'll pay this bunch asap. And the next, and the next.