This is the front page of the French magazine Le Figaro:
That’s right – a Dubya-style “mission accomplished”. It took these folks 32 hours to get a single guy. And they got at least three colleagues shot in the process…
Even the excuse “we were told to get him alive” is not credible. There are plenty of “special technology weapons” which can be used to catch an armed terrorist which, in this case, was made even easier by the fact that he had no hostages and that the entire building was evacuated. As a Russian anti-terrorist officer commented in the newspaper Rossiiskaia Gazeta, the use of special weapons such as “flash-bang” grenades and paralyzing gas should have made this a 3min operation, not a 32 hours one.
The French special police forces (RAID, GIPN, GIGN) have a very good reputation and some of their success were spectacular (remember the successful storming of the Air France Flight 8969 in 1994?). I have no idea what went so wrong this time, but the kind of jingoistic flag-waving nonsense printed by Le Figaro is really only an embarrassment for the French police.
The whole affair has been a ghastly tragedy. Clearly the man must have been insane to murder children the way he did.
I expect this will benefit the National Front come the election and probably also Sarkozy. I was very much hoping that Sarko would get the boot; this can only boost Islamophoia and help Sarko’s stance of being tough on immigrant Muslims and demanding “integration”
Why are their faces covered?
I think the internal political situation which has been getting out of hand in France for a number of years now probably had a part in the French Special Forces not taking an immediate hard line approach not to flare ethnic/racial tensions in the area.
Russians do these operations all the time in the Caucasus especially in Dagestan.
Given French Algerians history of recruitment and fighting for Chechen terrorists including the attempted airport missile attack and chemical weapon attacks against Russian interests in France which ironically Colin Powell referenced in his pre-Iraq war speech to the UN I would not be surprised if he at least attempted to fight in Chechnya.
It is rather suspicious if true that he had visited Israel in the past even if it was to enter the Palestinian regions especially if he also visited the other countries in the region Jordan, Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria.
http://www.jpost.com/International/Article.aspx?ID=263047&R=R1
@Anonymous:Why are their faces covered?
Out of a sense of shame? (just kidding)
Seriously, the official reason for this practice is that it preserves the anonymity of the special forces operators. The obvious beneficial side effect is that when folks dressed like that jump on you it scares the crap out of most people and prevents them from resisting. Lastly, it makes them look “tough” which is also a nice benefit :-)
Now I have to tell you that there is a ridiculous proliferation of masked (pseudo-) “special forces” in many countries. In Russia, almost every agency or corporation have their own “spetsnaz” and in the USA I recently saw a video about “Fish and Wildlife” “Special Forces” (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MPP0YYqMEEs) which, I suppose, will arrest any terrorist illegally fishing in the Everglades…
Frankly, this is a fad, a trend, a fashion. Anybody and everybody gets to be “special” and wear a scary mask. Most of them are just glorified cops. So don’t be too impressed by scary looks: coppers will be coppers and real special operators are rare and very precious.
HTH
Dear Saker,
You are absolutely right about the whole affair in France.
It smacks a False Flag attack from here to high heaven, and it is one hell of timing…for such theatricals by Nicolas MOSSAD Sarkozy.
Best,
Joe
What happened to my comment?
@Robert
Pretty damn convenient, that. These terr’sts have an uncanny ability to pop up whenever they are needed most. Who says you can’t get good help these days?
I had hoped the French would have the sense to excise Sarkoma but all it takes is for some Algerians to burn a few cars and they reach for a fuehrer to protect them. They are worse than Americans in that regard.
Gilad Atzmon asks some interesting questions:
http://www.gilad.co.uk/writings/is-it-an-israeli-false-flag-again.html