Blackmail Plot vs. French Government

[Night Stalker]

That heartens me Masklinn. At least your government has finally learned that appeasment doesn't work. That it is only a stop gap measure that usually encourages friskey behavior later.

[Timber Loftis]

Is it just me, or does Masklinn's baby dragon look like it's trying to cop a feel?

[johnny]

It's just you Timber.... just you and your wild imagination.

[Timber Loftis]

Hehe ... I admit to having a prurient imagination.

I think the French government should "smoke 'em out" and tell them to "bring it on." [img]graemlins/heee.gif[/img]

[Azred]

What an interesting case; I'll have to follow this one.

Of course it can't be terrorists, because terrorists claim responsibility after a bomb has exploded.
The demand for $5 million is a smokescreen. Any person or group who can successfully plant a dozen (so they claim) "relatively sophisticated" 2-kg ammonium nitrate devices just wants to see if they can do it; they are more interested in outwitting the government than money, or they would have demanded a bigger ransom. Besides, the bomb planters know (or should know) that the French government will have a way of tracking the money no matter where they go or what they do with it, so being given a case full of money is useless.
"AZF" is probably also nothing. Either 1) the letters mean something only to those who planted the devices (an inside joke) or 2) they were chosen at random. If, as in the previous paragraph, these people want to see if they can get away with something they would have given their group's full name, to maximize potential publicity.

[johnny]

Actually, AZF DOES mean something. It's the name of a chemical plant (i think)in Toulouse, which exploded and killed more than 20 people. It could have something to do with that. If your French isn't too rusty, read this.

[John D Harris]

Originally posted by Illumina Drathiran'ar: They'll surrender [img]tongue.gif[/img] Seriously, though, I think the term "terrorist" is overused. Johnny is right (Is this in the Book of Revelations? "The end is nigh when the Lady of Light accuses The Great Imbiber of being right; and lo, the Four Horsemen will ride within the week") here. Terrorists don't "warn" people. Maybe in urban legends they do ("I helped him carry my groceries and he told me to stay away from the city on September 11th")... What BS. They're not terrorists, they're criminals. There's a difference.

I don't believe that's from Revelations, sounds more like Nastrodamus (sp?) Revelations just says there are four riders, they will ride and these are the things they'll do (paraphased by me).

[Black Baron]

Wrong, John D Harris.
There are 5 riders. Add up chaos.
He left before they became important, though. [img]tongue.gif[/img]

There is still a chance that that criminals are in fact terorrists.
Not sane ones, but... who knows? [img]smile.gif[/img]

[John D Harris]

Originally posted by Black Baron: Wrong, John D Harris. There are 5 riders. Add up chaos. He left before they became important, though. [img]tongue.gif[/img] There is still a chance that that criminals are in fact terorrists. Not sane ones, but... who knows? [img]smile.gif[/img]

you maybe right about there being 5 in total, I was thunking of the four, that are listed together, commonly called the four horsemen of the apocalpse(SP?)

[Azred]

Originally posted by johnny: Actually, AZF DOES mean something. It's the name of a chemical plant (i think)in Toulouse, which exploded and killed more than 20 people. It could have something to do with that. If your French isn't too rusty, read this.

Ah. Some form of ecoterrorism combined with moral outrage. I missed that one. [img]graemlins/petard.gif[/img] Still, planting explosive devices does fall outside the normal range of action taken by ecoterrorists. Oh, well...let's just hope no one gets seriously hurt.