December 30, 2002

Paris suspect 'had bomb ready to use'

A baggage handler at Paris' Charles de Gaulle airport, arrested after a weapons cache was found his car, had a bomb that was ready to use, say French sources.

Police say five cakes of plastic explosives, two detonators and two automatic weapons including a machine gun were found in his car, which was parked at the airport.

French media, quoting sources close to the investigation, said the cache included a bomb that was "ready to use".
[...]
The suspect, Frenchman Adberrazaq Besseghir, is of Algerian origin.

He was arrested late on Saturday after a tip-off from a member of the public, who saw a weapon in the car boot.

There may be more to this civilians TIPS program than we're giving it credit for!

Paris police have made several arrests in the past two weeks of suspected Islamic militants. The authorities say some were planning an attack on the Russian embassy in the city.

I wonder why the Islamists have been picking on the Russians of late so often?
Is it simply because their targets are "softer" or what...?

As a baggage handler, Mr Besseghir has security clearance for several restricted areas of Charles de Gaulle airport, one of Europe's busiest.
Police said before Christmas that they had found bomb-making equipment during raids on at least one of the addresses searched in the Paris suburbs.

In total, nine arrests have been made since 16 December, when four people were arrested in the Paris suburb of La Courneuve.[Lest we forget, La Courneuve is the preferred Parisian banlieu of Islamist "militants" everywhere and also where the Ayatollah planned the Iranian Revolution of 1979 while he was in exile.--Jen]

All those arrested are said to be of Algerian or Moroccan origin.

The arrests stem from an investigation into possible connections between Islamic militants in Europe and Chechnya.

Fearing a possible attack over the Christmas and New Year holiday period, the French Government has ordered an extra 1,000 police and troops on to the streets of Paris.

This story makes me totally frightened, that 16 months after 9/11, there are still sleeper agents in strategic places like international airports who have obtained access to restricted and supposedly "secure" areas where they can wreak the most damage.
Of course, it is France...but it sounds as if even the laissez-faire French have gotten deadly serious about hunting these killers down.
Note the Algerian/Moroccan origins of the terrorists; they are on the same page as all the rest of the world's Islamist terrorists but with a special beef against the French government for their alleged misdeeds when they ruled those North African countries as colonies.
Also notice the mention (again) of Chechnya as an Islamist terrorist hot-spot.
In addition to "Palestine," Chechnya and Kashmir are the Islamists' current favorite locales to cause trouble, incite Islamist revolution and just plain kill people.
Speaking of which, check out this story:
Chechnya bombing death toll rises

The death toll from a suicide bombing at the headquarters of the pro-Russian Government in Chechnya has risen to 80, according to Russian television reports.

Rescuers on Sunday called off the search for survivors, two days after the attack devastated the compound in the Chechen capital, Grozny.

As the body count rose, a top Russian prosecutor said he was preparing to charge personnel who failed to stop the attackers getting through the fortified site.

Pro-Russian officials in the breakaway republic have blamed rebel Chechen leader Aslan Maskhadov for the attack, but Mr Maskhadov has denied any involvement.

Authorities in Russia have also suggested Islamic extremists might have been behind the bombing, blaming the attack on "international terrorism".

Doesn't that kind of editorializing just kill you?!
The BBC makes it sound as if blaming Islamist terrorism is no more credible or responsible in this case than blaming Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny.