Bomb found on French rail line
2004-03-24 20:14
Paris - A bomb containing several detonators has been found on a French rail line linking Paris to the Swiss city of Basel, French authorities said on Wednesday.
The object "strongly resembled" a previous bomb planted by a shadowy group calling itself AZF which has threatened to blow up parts of France's rail network unless it is paid millions of euros, a police official said.
The interior ministry issued a statement saying an employee with the state rail company SNCF found the bomb 200km southeast of Paris, in the town of Montieramey, near Troyes.
It added that a bomb squad had neutralised the device, which was found to contain nitrate fuel, seven detonators and a timing device. "One wire was not connected," it said.
The discovery came the same day President Jacques Chirac and other foreign leaders were in Madrid to attend a memorial mass for the 190 people killed in the March 11 bomb attacks in the Spanish capital which have been attributed to Islamists linked to al-Qaeda.
French authorities have been on high alert for any plots targeting trains or railways since AZF first surfaced in February with its threat and a blackmail demand for a payment of €4m and $1m.
To show the seriousness of its claims, AZF tipped off French police last month to the location of the previous bomb, considered by police to be "sophisticated, worthy of an explosives expert."
After an exchange of messages via letters and newspaper classified pages, and an unsuccessful attempt to drop off the money, AZF apparently disappeared - but not before increasing its extortion demand and warning it would strike railway targets as well as at "three symbolic sites outside the railways" if it were not paid.
Officials have refused to say whether they remain in contact with the group, whose initials are believed to come from the AZF factory in the southern city of Toulouse that was destroyed in an explosion in September 2001, killing 30 people and injuring more than 1 000 others. The blast was officially described as an accident but caused enormous local anger.