This is probably some anarchist or communist group. Muslim’s don’t warn anyone nor do they ‘forget’ the detonators. In fact it’s unlikely Muslim groups would use dynamite as they tend to prefer Semtex or improvised explosives. Since Russia’s emergence on to the world stage with the attack on Georgia we have seen them go back to funding every two bit rebel group from the FLQ in Quebec Canada to far right wing extremists in Germany. Russia as it’s no longer impeded by communist ideology is now free to fund any group at all that can keep a nation off balance and ideally a western NATO nation. So the story below seems suspiciously more Russian funded leftists than it does Islamic. When was the last time a Muslim terrorist warned about ‘Capitalist stores’?
By Peter Allen and Mail Foreign Service
Last updated at 3:05 PM on 16th December 2008
Terrorists brought panic to the heart of Paris this morning after dynamite was discovered in one of the city’s most famous department stores.
Police evacuate Department store.
Thousands of shoppers and staff were evacuated from Printemps, the French equivalent of Harrods, following a warning from a previously unknown group calling itself the Afghan Revolutionary Front.
They had threatened to bring ‘death and destruction’ unless French troops leave Afghanistan.
Police officers outside the Printemps department shop in Paris this lunchtime after the explosives had been neutralized
The explosives were found in the washrooms of the menswear department shortly after the store was opened today.
Anti-crime brigades and de-mining teams were called in, and the store evacuated and cordoned off to prevent any harm to shoppers crowding the busy streets less than two weeks before Christmas.
British shoppers were among those caught up in the drama.
Nina Bradshaw, of North London, said: ‘It was absolute chaos. We were told to get out immediately, and didn’t hang about.
‘Traffic was brought to a standstill outside and nobody seemed to know what to do. Then police cordoned the whole area off.’
The sticks of dynamite tied together without a detonator. Interior Minister Michele Alliot-Marie said the explosives appeared ‘relatively old’.
A police officer clears crowds of shoppers. France’s national news agency said it received a claim of responsibility from an Afghan group
Anxious shoppers can be seeing fleeing the Printemps store in Paris today after five sticks of explosives were discovered
Anxious shoppers can be seeing fleeing the Printemps store in Paris today after five sticks of explosives were discovered
‘There was no risk of explosion,’ the minister said.
French news agency Agence France-Presse said it received a letter on Tuesday morning saying that several bombs had been planted in the store.
Police said they searched the store and found the dynamite because of the warning.
Alliot-Marie said the Afghan Revolutionary Front was ‘totally unknown’ to police but that the claim was being studied.
In the letter, the group demanded the withdrawal of French troops from Afghanistan before the end of February, and threatened attacks if France refuses.
‘Otherwise we will go back into action in your big capitalist stores and this time without warning you,’ the letter said.
olice officers cordon off the Paris department store after the alert this morning
President Nicolas Sarkozy, who has increased France’s troop levels in Afghanistan, quickly stressed that he would not bend to terrorism. France has 2,800 troops in Afghanistan.
‘We need to be vigilant about terrorism. That is the only right policy. We have to be firm. We cannot compromise with terrorists,’ Sarkozy said.
Officers cordoned off streets around the building. Anti-crime brigades and bomb squads were called in.
Store employees and customers left the building.
‘It’s worrying, but there’s no reason to panic,’ said Evelyne Bredy, a sportswear saleswoman who works on the third floor, where the explosives were found.
She and a shivering colleague waited outside the store while police with sniffer dogs worked inside.
‘We’re used to it. It happens,’ she said. ‘There are often suspicious packages – though maybe not this type of evacuation.’
