Al Qaeda threatens France

Ynet:

A French intelligence report says that France is being targeted by al-Qaeda, the London-based Arabic-language newspaper al-Hayat reported Friday.


The report warned decision makers of a series of scenarios, including a terror attack which will take place ahead of the presidential elections in a bid to influence their results.


The report was recently submitted to the French authorities and was titled 'Situation report on the radical Islamic terror threat in France.' The report was composed by various intelligence and security organizations in the country for three months.


The writers of report fear a terror attack similar to the one which took place in Madrid in March 2004. In order to illustrate the concrete threat, the newspaper published for the first time a letter handwritten and signed by Osama bin Laden, which instructed a radical Islamic organization in Algeria to "attack in eastern and southern France."


According to the report, al-Qaeda affiliated websites contain "threatening messages by the organization, which include pictures from the French presidential campaign."


The report added that "what contributes to the severity of the threats is that senior al-Qaeda members need to prove that they can still exert their influence in Europe and not only in the traditional jihad countries such as Iraq and Afghanistan."


The report detailed four "threat centers" from which the activists would emerge. The first is "the Iraqi networks": Hundreds of Muslims with a European citizenship who volunteered to fight in Iraq against the US army and returned last summer to Europe. Since their return, they have been working on building secret cells or preparing terror attacks.


Intelligence information received by France points to the fact that one of the close assistants of Jordanian terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, confessed during an interrogation by the Iraqi intelligence that about 30 radical Islamic Moroccans carrying a European passport have secretly infiltrated France and several French-speaking countries in Africa in a bid to prepare terror attacks.


It appears that this information has been taken seriously by France, as several suspects have already been arrested in Canada.

The second source of threat mentioned by the report was "the Afghan-Pakistan networks." Contrary to the prevailing belief that these networks completely disintegrated after September 11, 2001 and the war in Afghanistan, these organizations' training camps have reappeared near the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.

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A third source of concern for the French intelligence is "the Caucasian terror networks." According to the information, these networks are supervised by the al-Qaeda representative in Central Asia and include graduates of secret training camps in different places in Asia, including Kashmir, China, Uzbekistan, Georgia and Chechnya.

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A fourth source of concern for France, and perhaps the most severe, is the organizations in North Africa, mainly those affiliated with a radical Islamic organization in Algeria. The leader of this organization has threatened France several times in the past two years.

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The Algerian organization is deemed the greatest threat. It apparently has a long term relationship with al Qaeda and bin Laden. It appears that al Qaeda is attempting to increase terror attacks on all fronts this year. It is a greatly weakened organization, so it capacity to pull off sustained terror attacks is limited. It does have the capacity for one off attacks.

Hopefully France will be able to find and stop the attackers, but a series of attacks on France would probably invoke a vigorous response. Al Qaeda is probably hoping for a Spain type response and that may be the reason it is timing the attacks for the election period. It will be interesting to see whether such attacks will be a wake up call or a snooze alarm for the French.