Rattling the nerves of Parisians at the height of the Christmas shopping season, a package of dynamite planted in a luxury Paris department store -- Printmps -- was found and removed by the police on Tuesday, the package was discovered following information provided by a French news agency.
The store on the elegant Boulevard Haussmann, was just beginning to fill up with shoppers at 1100 hours (Paris time) on Tuesday when the police swooped in, they discovered five sticks of dynamite bound together on the third floor of the men's store. There was no detonator with the dynamite, French officials said.
A previously unknown group calling itself the Afghan Revolutionary Front said in a warning mailed to Agence France-Presse that it had planted the explosives in the store. It demanded the withdrawal of French troops from Afghanistan and warned that it would strike again if President Nicolas Sarkozy did not bring the troops home by the end of February.
Interior Minister Michèle Alliot-Marie and the mayor of Paris, Bertrand Delanoë, rushed to the scene, where bomb-squad vans on the cordoned-off the area.
"For the moment, we have found sticks of dynamite in just one location," Alliot-Marie told reporters. She said the dynamite was "relatively old" and had no detonator, adding, "From what we know so far, this was not a device that was intended to explode."
Sarkozy, speaking from the eastern French city of Strasbourg, said security officials were analyzing the explosives.
"Vigilance against terrorism is the only possible option," he said in a live television broadcast.
In its statement to Agence France-Presse, the Afghan Revolutionary Front said, "Send the message to your president that he needs to withdraw his troops from our country before the end of February 2009, or else we will act again in your capitalist department stores, and this time with no warning."
France has about 3,000 troops deployed with the NATO-led force in Afghanistan.
The store on the elegant Boulevard Haussmann, was just beginning to fill up with shoppers at 1100 hours (Paris time) on Tuesday when the police swooped in, they discovered five sticks of dynamite bound together on the third floor of the men's store. There was no detonator with the dynamite, French officials said.
A previously unknown group calling itself the Afghan Revolutionary Front said in a warning mailed to Agence France-Presse that it had planted the explosives in the store. It demanded the withdrawal of French troops from Afghanistan and warned that it would strike again if President Nicolas Sarkozy did not bring the troops home by the end of February.
Interior Minister Michèle Alliot-Marie and the mayor of Paris, Bertrand Delanoë, rushed to the scene, where bomb-squad vans on the cordoned-off the area.
"For the moment, we have found sticks of dynamite in just one location," Alliot-Marie told reporters. She said the dynamite was "relatively old" and had no detonator, adding, "From what we know so far, this was not a device that was intended to explode."
Sarkozy, speaking from the eastern French city of Strasbourg, said security officials were analyzing the explosives.
"Vigilance against terrorism is the only possible option," he said in a live television broadcast.
In its statement to Agence France-Presse, the Afghan Revolutionary Front said, "Send the message to your president that he needs to withdraw his troops from our country before the end of February 2009, or else we will act again in your capitalist department stores, and this time with no warning."
France has about 3,000 troops deployed with the NATO-led force in Afghanistan.
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