Deadly Fires Sweep French Riviera, Arson Suspected (al-Qaeda planned this for the American West)

ens-news.com/ ^ | July 29, 2003 | ENS

[Destro]

Deadly Fires Sweep French Riviera, Arson Suspected

ROQUEBRUNE-SUR-ARGENS, France, July 29, 2003 (ENS) - At least four people have died, and more than 50 homes have been destroyed in fires that swept 8,000 hectares of pine forests in the Maures mountains behind the French Riviera over the past 24 hours. Thousands of vacationers have been evacuated from seven campsites in France's premier resort area.

Some 30 fires blazed up at about the same time Monday afternoon in the Var region between the cities of Toulon and Nice. Investigators have found bottles with wicks inside, leading to suspicions that the fires were started deliberately with gasoline bombs.

The mayor of Roquebrune-Sur-Argens, Luc Jousse, called the fires "a new form of terrorism." By 10 o'clock last night local time, fire had reached the edge of the seaside resort of Sainte-Maxime on the Gulf of Saint-Tropez, cutting electricity and telephone lines. Nearly 1,500 people fled to safety late Monday night.

Today President Jacques Chirac threatened "sanctions of an extraordinary gravity" against those who may have set the fires.

Three women, two British and one Dutch, and a Polish man lost their lives in the fires, Var fire chief Colonel Jacques Baudot told the AP.

Nine firefighting planes have been dropping tons of water onto the burning mountain slopes. About 1,500 French firefighters who battled the blazes all night got some help from Italian firefighters and equipment this morning.

The fires are the worst ever in the Var region, which is still recovering from devastating forest fires on July 18 that blackened 25,000 acres and forced the evacuation of thousands of people from Riviera vacation spots.

French Defence Minister Michele Alliot-Marie said Monday that the army would send reinforcements to help fight the fires. French Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy traveled to the stricken area today.

Firefighters in southern Italy are also battling wildfires, which have damaged wide areas of Calabria and in the area of Salento in the Apulia region, fire officials said. Again here, arson is suspected, and record temperatures and high winds are hampering efforts to extinguish the blazes.

On Saturday a fire on the slopes of Mount Vesuvius was extinguished. Several hundred crews are busy all over Italy with firefighting operations. "The high temperatures and the drought endanger southern Italy completely," said Giuseppe Di Croce, general director of the Italian Foresters Society.

On the island of Corsica, fires are spreading to the north of Bonifacio where a man was seriously burned, and evacuations are being carried out by air and sea.

[japaneseghost]

Of course, the French gov. would never admit this is Al-Quaida, just the the FBI will never admit who really did TWA 800.

And if a small plane goes into a federal bldg soon (as they are predicting) the FBI will say it was an accident (the pilot had a seizure, for example).

Let's move right along, nothing to see here....

By the way, there's been other stuff going on in Europe that doesn't make our news.

http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/07/27/1059244490771.html
is just one.

The Aga Khan was mugged, and his car stolen. The car was found burnt out 3 hours later. Now, I'd say that's a pretty stupid thing to do to someone who has diplomatic immunity (can get away with murder) and who has at least 15 million followers who would kill at his beck and call.

Sounds to me like some govt (British MI6) was trying to teach him a lesson.

[Mo1]

Today President Jacques Chirac threatened "sanctions of an extraordinary gravity" against those who may have set the fires.

Oh I just bet they are scared now

[VRWC_minion]

Corrected text follows

Today President Jacques Chirac threatened surrender "sanctions of an extraordinary gravity" against those who may have set the fires

[Burkeman1]

Wasn't there some arson investigator in California who set hundreds of such fires for years and was always on the scene to "find" the source of the fire and take credit?

[Mad_Tom_Rackham]

Each al-queda caught commiting arson should be doused in gasoline and set afire -- let them run down the street in flames. Then dispose of their corpses in pig stys.

[Newbomb Turk]

I Hear 2/3 of the wine grape crop got hailed out a short time ago too. The article said the growers are trying to sue the weather forcasters.

France. I laugh at your ancestors haircut.

[xm177e2]

I was expecting this sort of thing to happen in America (and I was expecting far more than 30 to go off at once). I don't know whether to be relieved (that we will take this threat seriously) or worried (that it is indeed a real threat). I'm leaning towards worry--our national forests are far too big to protect in their entirety.

The ONLY reasonable solution is a policy of logging and controlled burns to stop the forests from building up enough fuel for truly devastating fires.

[Diddle E. Squat]

I dunno, but my first reaction to persons being killed in an arson fire is anger, instead of making a joke.

[henderson field]

What's the difference between Al-Qaida and the U.S. Forest Service? The Forest Service actually sets forest fires; Al-Qaida just talks about it. How many acres were burned at Los Alamos last year? And then there's the Colorado fire that actually was arson by a Forest Service employee. Thousands of acres incinerated. They need to do some house cleaning there. Trouble is, you can't fire any of them.

[Excuse_My_Bellicosity]

Today President Jacques Chirac threatened "sanctions of an extraordinary gravity" against those who may have set the fires.

Does this mean that you're going to ask to be removed from the muslim payroll, chucklehead Chirac?

[EGPWS]

Sixty years later appeasement is still getting the French the same ole same ole.

Yep, and we have a CIC that gets ridiculed, by some, for the profound statement "Bring it on"!

[Travis McGee]

Just a matter of time.

[Smile-n-Win]

Today President Jacques Chirac threatened "sanctions of an extraordinary gravity" against those who may have set the fires.

What a simplistic cowboy!

[theDentist]

Seems Chirac's rolling over for Iraq didn't buy him much.

[BayouCoyote]

BUMP!

[justshutupandtakeit]

That "link" appears tenuous at best or non-existent.

[SpinnerWebb]

Today President Jacques Chirac threatened "sanctions of an extraordinary gravity" against those who may have set the fires.

what the hell is HE gonna do about it? Ask the US to bail them out yet again?!?!? You burned that bridge earlier this year, buddy. AMFYOYO.

Adios, MF, You're On Your Own!

[RightWhale]

That is the stuff of TV movies. No one will believe such nonsense. The firefighter setting fires simply because he is paid by the fire? Nah, couldn't be.

[robowombat]

Interestingly Maoist 'student guerillas' did the same thing in the same area in 1968. It wasn't widely reported but the extrodinary fire season that summer was only partly due to drought like conditions. Various leftist types sparked numerous fires which resulted in both extensive property loss and quite a few deaths. As usual this event has disappeared down the memory hole and one has to spend quite a bit of time looking at newspaper microfilms to find passing mention of these actions.

[RetiredArmy]

Still don't understand why ole Al Kada would want to harm their biggest supports outside of the DNC?