French alert over threatened gas attack

Monday January 10, 2005

Hundreds of security agents and rescuers armed with toxic gas antidotes went to the international airport in Nice yesterday after the authorities received a letter threatening a gas attack.

The authorities said the threat to release Zyklon B gas yesterday morning at the airport was not fully credible but was not a hoax. The threat prompted their long-delayed plan to hold a readiness exercise to counter nuclear, chemical or gas attacks. "We didn't have to write the scenario since we used the theme of the letter threat: releasing Zyklon B type gas in the terminals," said Philippe Breuil, prefect of the Alpes-Maritimes region.

The letter claimed that an attack with Zyklon B, which was used in Nazi death camps, would be start between 9am and noon local time if air traffic was not shut down.

Planes continued to take off and land as teams with portable medical units prepared for a gas attack and police checked luggage at the Nice-Cote d'Azur airport's two terminals. About 350 people took part in the exercise. The letter, in German and signed by a group calling itself the EBG, or European Globalisation Liberation Front, claimed the Zyklon B, in a travel bag, would be released via a long-distance trigger.

Mr Breuil said the threat was "unlikely" but could not be dismissed. "It isn't a hoax. We are faced with serious threats by people who know the product they're talking about."

Rescuers said they had 400 doses of an antidote for Zyklon B. Security officials gave the threat a 2 rating on a scale of 1 to 5. Meanwhile, the Paris prosecutors' office ordered a preliminary investigation into the threat.

The letter said there were no demands for "ransom or material assets". It said: "We are fighting against the exploitation of people and nature by the forms of globalisation," adding that the group had recruited "secret combatants" in other European airports. The letter said the Nice airport was a target "because in this southern French metropolis on the Mediterranean, commerce with its inhuman characteristics is especially clear".

Nice is due to host a Nato summit next month.

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