Explosives Found in Paris Department Store

World | Tue, Dec 16, 2008 at 9:43:22 am PST

Police have discovered five sticks of dynamite at Paris department store Printemps (with no detonators), after an AFP office received a warning letter.

French news agency Agence France-Presse said it received a letter Tuesday morning from a group calling itself the Afghan Revolutionary Front saying that several bombs had been planted in the store. Police said they searched the store and found the dynamite because of the warning.

Alliot-Marie said the group was “totally unknown” to police but that the claim was being studied.

In the letter, the group demanded the withdrawal of French troops from Afghanistan before the end of February, and threatened attacks if France refuses.

“Otherwise we will go back into action in your big capitalist stores and this time without warning you,” the letter said, according to AFP.

This does not look like the work of Islamic terrorists, because of the warnings (they don’t give warnings), the lack of detonators (their bombs are never just symbolic), and the fact that there was apparently no mention of Islam in the warning letter. There are plenty of home-grown French radical leftists, anarchists, and/or fascists who might pull a stunt like this.