Paris was gripped with a bomb scare in the midst of the holiday shopping season after police found dynamite in a department store there yesterday.  What police described as 5 old sticks of dynamite were found in the Men’s section of a branch of the Printemps department store.  The explosives were not attached to any sort of detonation device and thus did not pose any imminent danger.

The Printemps store had been evacuated of all its customers around 11 AM yesterday morning as a result of a letter sent to a French press organization warning that a bomb was in a bathroom of the building.  Bomb sniffing dogs were brought in which found the dynamite sticks.

The warning letter was signed by a previously unheard of group calling itself the Afghan Revolutionary Front.  The news agency which received the letter reported it demanded that France withdraw its troops from Afghanistan as part of the joint NATO actions there.  Threats were issued toward France’s “big capitalist stores” if withdrawal of troops was not complete by February of next year.  However French officials said the type of explosive found at the Printemps store and the language in the letter were inconsistent with known Islamic extremist groups in France. 

You can takepart in helping improve the situation in Afghanistan by checking out Afghans for Civil Society.

LINKS:

Baltimore Sun: Paris shaken by bomb scare

BBC News: France on alert after bomb scare

NY Times: Explosives found at Paris department store