Reports: Plot to attack Paris subway, airport thwarted.

PARIS - Authorities fear that a suspected Islamic terror cell broken up in France was plotting attacks on the Paris subway, an airport and an intelligence agency's headquarters, newspapers said Tuesday.

Police arrested nine people Monday in the sweep, including an Islamic militant previously convicted on terrorism charges and freed from prison two years ago, officials said.

Le Figaro and Le Parisien newspapers said the alleged cell's suspected targets included the Metro, a Paris airport and the Paris headquarters of the Directorate for Territorial Surveillance, or DST, a police intelligence and counterterrorism agency.

Er, while some of you seem to think terrorism in France is a recent, Al Qaeda-era phenomenon, fact is many radical movements resorted to terrorism on French territory, or against French citizens abroad.

In the 1960s, the terrorism was linked to the Algerian War, and the attacks were perpetrated by Algerian Independists and extremist French colonists just as well, albeit with diametrally opposed goals.

In the 1970s, France was hit by Palestinian and Armenian terrorism, as well as the homebred and Moscow-funded Action Directe Communist groups.

In the 1980s, the terrorist attacks were more directly linked to sponsors such as Libya (whose troops faced French troops in Chad from 1984 to 1986), Iran, and Syria. Apart from the kidnapping or assassination of French citizens (such as the Damascus-sponsored assassination of the French ambassador in Lebanon), the attacks targeted France's Jewish population. Basque and Corsican separatists also attacked official targets, albeit generally avoiding any loss of life.

As the French anti-terrorism units scored major hits on various groups in the 1980s (Action DIrecte was wiped out, Carlos was arrested and sent to France to be judged, the Basque ETA reeled after French-Spanish joint arrests), terrorism against French interests in the 1990s mainly took place abroad. You might remember a mi-1990s hijacking of an Air France flight in Algeria by terrorists who, as it transpired, had planned to fly the plane into Paris for maximum loss of life.

From 2000 onward, terrorism in France has taken its new global, Al-Qaeda face. In 2002, a Chechen group was stopped short of attacking the Russian embassy. In 2003 (IIRC), another Islamic group was arrested before they could launch an attack against the United States's embassy in Paris.

For those interested in the tactics and legislative arsenal used against terrorist groups in France, here are some links you might find useful :

Video of an arrest :

http://www.lci.fr/news/0,,3248815-e3BsYXllciBxdWFsaXR5IFVOVl9JRH0gezIwMiAyMDEgNTJ9,00.html

French anti-terrorism policy :

http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=19403

http://www.brookings.edu/views/articles/fellows/shapiro20030301.pdf

France also has a policy in place that we could learn from ourselves. They basically maintain a standing policy of immediately deporting anyone who gets up in a mosque and calls on his followers to engage in jihad against the French people, government, etc. No deportation hearings, no agonizing over the "rights of the accused," and no concern over underwear on someone's head . . . they just put the guy on the next Air Jihad flight to some Middle Eastern rat-hole and are done with him.

>I have seen other stats than what Wikepedia has

Wikipedia's stats
are consistent with others.
One site compiles them,

so you can check out
the range of "accepted" deaths.
Wikipedia's fair.

--------------------------------------------------------------

Source List and Detailed Death Tolls for the Man-made Megadeaths of the Twentieth Century

France

Military:

Ellis: 92,000 (1940), 30,000 (in exile)
Compton's: 166,195
Keegan: 200,000
Eckhardt: 200,000
Info. Please: 201,568
Small & Singer: 210,000 (w/Allies), 2,500 (Vichy, w/Axis)
HarperCollins: 210,671
Britannica: 213,324 (incl. 1,200 Vichy)
Davies: 213,324
Clodfelter: 245,000 incl...
213,324 KIA, which incl. 2,653 Vichy
Encarta: 250,000
Urlanis: 250,000
KIA, 1939-40 War: 92,000
KIA, Free French, 1940-45: 58,000
Resistance: 20,000
Alsatian French conscripts KIA w/German army: 40,000
POW Deaths: 40,000

Civilian:

HarperCollins: 173,260
Britannica: 350,000
Davies: 350,000
Clodfelter: 350,000
Urlanis: 350,000
From bombing: 60,000
Nazi terror: 90,000
Forced labor in Germany: 40,000
German concentration camps: 160,000
Encarta: 360,000
Keegan: 400,000
Eckhardt: 450,000
Ellis: 470,000

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,170550,00.html
AP
"Reports: France Suspects Plotted Subway, Airport Attacks"
Tuesday, September 27, 2005

PARIS —

ARTICLE SNIPPET: "Police arrested nine people Monday, including an Islamic militant previously convicted on terrorism charges and freed from prison two years ago, officials said.

Le Figaro and Le Parisien newspapers said the alleged cell's suspected targets included the Metro, a Paris airport and the Paris headquarters of the Directorate for Territorial Surveillance (search), or DST, a police intelligence and counterterrorism agency. The reports did not identify the airport.

Le Figaro said the suspected cell allegedly had Al Qaeda (search) contacts and that some of its members had knowledge of explosives."

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