Algerian Militants Claim Responsibility For Blasts Muslim Group Had Threatened Attacks On French Soil
Police investigating Paris’ second terrorist bombing of the summer said Saturday that a little-known group of Algerian militants claimed responsibility for the blast near the Arc de Triomphe - as well as last month’s subway explosion.
The radio station RTL said a caller speaking in the name of the “GIA general command” claimed it carried out Thursday’s attack that wounded 17 people - mostly tourists - near the famed arch.
Police sources said they could not authenticate the claim, made late Friday, but were taking it seriously. They disclosed for the first time that the station had received two similar claims after the July 25 bombing that killed seven people and wounded 84 others in a Paris subway.
The “GIA general command” is a new name, but authorities believe it may be an offshoot of the Armed Islamic Group, known by its French initials GIA, which has been trying to topple the military-backed Algerian government and establish strict Islamic rule.
The Armed Islamic Group, angry at France for supporting the government in its former colony, has threatened attacks on French soil.
Police stepped up their presence in Paris on Saturday and seemed to be everywhere, standing vigil at airports and train stations and riding shotgun on subway trains.
Bomb threats have persisted in the French capital since the subway bombing; 39 were reported Saturday, including one that forced the evacuation of hundreds of people from the pyramid section of the Louvre art museum. No bombs were found.
Investigators’ focus on Muslim militants narrowed after a man said Friday that he saw two North African men trying to stuff a package into a trash can near the arch minutes before the bomb exploded, spraying 5-inch nails and hex nuts into a crowded street.
The witness, who said he was riding by on a bicycle, told French television that he helped police create composite sketches of the two men.
Interior Minister Jean-Louis Debre said he was immediately struck by “a certain number of troubling elements” common to both bombings. Police have said that the same kind of bomb, made from a readily available butane canister, was used in both attacks.
Authorities also believe the bombers carried out the assassination of the elderly co-founder of the Islamic Salvation Front at a Paris mosque on July 11, the French daily Le Monde reported Saturday, citing unidentified police sources. The slain imam, Abdelbaki Sahraoui, was at odds with the rival Armed Islamic Group, which reportedly had put his name on a death list in May.