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| Europe |
| AZF suspends threats against France |
| 2004-03-25 |
| A mysterious group that claimed to have planted bombs on the French railroad network announced Thursday it is suspending its terror threats while it improves its ability to carry them out. In two letters, addressed to President Jacques Chirac and Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy, the group, which calls itself AZF, said that "there are currently no bombs capable of functioning on the French rail network." "With the experience gained these last weeks and now conscious of its technological, logistic and other weaknesses, AZF suspends its action for the time needed to remedy this," the one-page typed letter said. The Interior Ministry said it received the letter Thursday morning, and made a copy available to the press. It carried the letters "AZF" and an arrow in the top left corner. The letter came a day after a bomb with seven detonators was found half-buried on a passenger train track near the town of Troyes, southeast of Paris, triggering a massive inspection of the tracks. It was the second bomb discovered hidden under tracks in just over a month — and the second inspection of thousands of miles of track. In the new letter, AZF also included a cryptic threat, saying that if the money were not paid when asked, "France will surpass without glory the sad Spanish records," an apparent reference to the Madrid bombings. "So understand well that we in no way renounce obtaining the sum ... that you should consider as a subsidy," the letter said. Investigators have carried on a cat-and-mouse game with AZF, using special phone lines and newspaper classified ads addressing the group with code names like "My big wolf." The investigators sign off as "Suzy." The daily newspaper Liberation said Thursday that police placed more ads March 12 and 17 that said "discretion assured" and included phone and fax numbers. Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin has said there had been "several contacts" with AZF. State-run France-2 TV reported Wednesday a rendezvous had been planned for last weekend but AZF apparently did not follow up. In the letter, AZF described itself as "a small brotherhood" with no grievances against the French government. "Our true objective is to strike a decisive blow against the depraved spirit that prevails today in most human actions," the letter said. |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |
| #14 "No Tips Escort Service" Damn. I nearly married... oh "tips". Never mind. |
| Posted by: Robert Crawford 2004-03-25 8:29:49 PM |
| #13 Angie - LOL! Don't forget the MILF's! Great catch! |
| Posted by: .com 2004-03-25 7:48:59 PM |
| #12 Guess the check cleared...ggg ...Last week French officials tried to pay AZF the equivalent of $5.2 million it had demanded for revealing the location of other bombs... http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1101040315-598552,00.html" |
| Posted by: Ghostrider 2004-03-25 7:45:05 PM |
| #11 ...police placed more ads March 12 and 17 that said "discretion assured"... Ohhhh! I've seen those! They also say stuff like "professional and courteous","sophisticated and elegant","classy and prompt"---oh, here's one: "BARELY LEGAL". Dang! Pretty brazen of them terrorists to advertise in the phone book like that. (Hmmm ... "Bored Housewives" ... "Older & Better" ... "No Tips Escort Service" ... now that's class, man, all class.) |
| Posted by: Angie Schultz 2004-03-25 6:28:10 PM |
| #10 "Our true objective is to strike a decisive blow against the depraved spirit that prevails today in most human actions," the letter said. In that case, when you OFF yourselves, please take along Chirac, Castro, Jong Il, Chompski, Moore... I'm sure you can fill in the rest of the list... |
| Posted by: Hyper 2004-03-25 2:48:39 PM |
| #9 there's a UN report that mentionnes several cases of blackmail like this in which Western governement actually did pay money to avert attacks..What's the opinion here on this? |
| Posted by: lyot 2004-03-25 2:40:22 PM |
| #8 I guess the French check must have cleared. |
| Posted by: Daniel King 2004-03-25 12:34:13 PM |
| #7 Well France can breath a large sigh of relief. The brigades have stood down. "we are safe again, let us parade." |
| Posted by: Lucky 2004-03-25 12:28:51 PM |
| #6 Man, this whole thing just smacks of a group of "revolutionary" students and professors. What is this masturbatory bullshit? Coded classified ads? Someone is attention-whoring, and reveling in the fact that he's being taken seriously. Be on the lookout for Marxist professors who have gone from being their usual glum selves to upbeat and lively in the past few months. |
| Posted by: gromky 2004-03-25 12:13:51 PM |
| #5 Perhaps the French, in the spirt of multicultural cooperation and understanding, could offer technical assistance to AZF. |
| Posted by: Michael 2004-03-25 12:00:10 PM |
| #4 These guys are taping everything for a documentary to be narrated by Peter Sellers. |
| Posted by: Mr. Davis 2004-03-25 11:30:33 AM |
| #3 Geebus, a Franco-Maroonian terror group goes into spate of self-criticism. Weird. Guess the helicopter got a GPS. |
| Posted by: Shipman 2004-03-25 11:22:43 AM |
| #2 Our true objective is to strike a decisive blow against the depraved spirit that prevails today in most human actions . . . And blowing up trains does that . . . how? |
| Posted by: Mike 2004-03-25 9:45:38 AM |
| #1 Sounds like the Chirac must have met their first installment plan. |
| Posted by: B 2004-03-25 9:44:28 AM |