France on alert: France has received threats of a possible attack against French interests from an Islamist group apparently named after a Chechen guerrilla killed in a Moscow hostage-taking incident in 2002, the Interior Ministry said yesterday.
The letter, sent to several newspapers, threatened "to plunge France into terror and remorse and spill blood outside its frontiers", Jacques Esperandieu, deputy editor of the daily Le Parisien, which received a copy, quoted it as saying.
The ministry confirmed earlier Justice Ministry reports that the threat, which it said was sent "on behalf of the servants of Allah, the powerful and wise", mentioned possible attacks in France and against French interests abroad. "These are threats articulated in such a way that they are being taken very seriously," a judicial source said.
The group called itself the Movsar Barayev Commando, an apparent reference to the militant who organised the October 2002 Chechen raid at a Moscow theatre that ended with 129 dead.
RTL radio said the letter was written in Arabic and posted from the main Paris post office. France's firm stand against the Iraq war was originally thought to have won it support in the Muslim world, but this evaporated when Paris banned Muslims from wearing headscarves in schools. Summarising the letter, Esperandieu said: "They're basically saying 'you thought you were safe because of your stand on Iraq, but France is no longer safe at all since February 10."
The National Assembly passed the veil ban on February 10th.
Prime Minister Mr Jean-Pierre Raffarin said the government took Islamist threats seriously but warned against panic.
"We have to keep calm. We are in a country which must not be afraid," he said. - (Reuters)