French miss: 'How can a 17yo acquire such an arsenal without detection?'

© Christian Hartmann / Reuters

The French authorities will be expected to see if any sort of warning signs had been missed before this act of violence occurred, Security analyst and former Counter Terrorism Intelligence officer, Charles Shoebridge, told RT.

The French government issued an attack alert after a shooting occurred at a college in the southern town of Grasse. The alert was issued over the government's mobile app.

Three people, a high school principle among them, were injured. Five more people were said to be suffering shock.

The attack shocked France, which has some of the toughest gun laws in the world. Citizens are banned from owning automatic weapons, while other guns require authorization, together with a permit from a hunting or sporting organization.

View image on Twitter

Nice-Matin
✔@Nice_Matin

Le périmètre de sécurité à #Grasse http://nicematin.com/a/122006
2:02 PM - 16 Mar 2017

3939 Retweets
1111 likes

On the same day, in Paris, a letter-bomb exploded at the office of the International Monetary Fund, injuring one person.

Following the incident, the French PM, Bernard Cazeuneve canceled a scheduled trip. President Francois Hollande has already called the incident a "terror attack".

RT: The school attacker was well-prepared, as he had a rifle, pistols and hand grenades with him. How was it possible for a 17-year-old to get all these weapons?

Charles Shoebridge: We don’t know yet whether all of those weapons were actually real as opposed to fake weapons, props, or something like that that you could use to intimidate or scare. But in fact, we’ve got so many injuries clearly suggesting that at least one of those was a functioning live weapon. The fact that [the attacker] was carrying grenades suggests that they may have been operational also. So, I think there are going to be two main points that people are going to be looking at here, apart from looking whether there are any accomplices and of course getting the injured back on their feet again.

First is the critically important point: how could it be that anybody, let alone a 17 year old, can acquire such a mini arsenal without having been detected. And secondly, I think people will want to look whether any warning signs beforehand were missed.

RT: President Hollande has called the letter-bomb incident at the IMF office a terror attack. Is this a return to this type of tactic?

Peter Kirkham, former police officer: There haven’t been many letter-bomb type attacks in recent times. It was something that was used from previous terror campaigns with various different motives behind them. It is also something that has been used in the past as one-off attacks by somebody with a grudge for some reason. It is far too early to establish exactly what the motivation is behind it. It is the sort of attack that may have various motivations.

The target of the IMF throws us a potential international angle. It could be somebody associated with some state that feels they have some sort of grievance with the IMF, for how the decisions of the IMF have impacted on their state and their lives. It also throws up the potential for somebody with a grievance for the financial institutions of the world.

So the potential motivations, the potential grievances behind it are sort of magnified by the nature of the venue of the attack.

Why States Still Use Barrel Bombs

Smoke ascends after a Syrian military helicopter allegedly dropped a barrel bomb over the city of Daraya on Jan. 31.(FADI DIRANI/AFP/Getty Images) Summary Barrel bombs are not especially effective weapons. They are often poorly constructed; they fail to detonate more often than other devices constructed for a similar purpose; and their lack of precision means they can have a disproportionate effect on civilian populations. However, combatants continue to use barrel bombs in conflicts, including in recent and ongoing conflicts in Africa and the Middle East, and they are ideally suited to the requirements of resource-poor states. Analysis Barrel bombs are improvised devices that contain explosive filling and shrapnel packed into a container, often in a cylindrical shape such as a barrel. The devices continue to be dropped on towns all over Syria . Indeed, there have been several documented cases of their use in Iraq over the past months, and residents of the city of Mosul, which was re

Russia Looks East for New Oil Markets

Click to Enlarge In the final years of the Soviet Union, Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev began orienting his foreign policy toward Asia in response to a rising Japan. Putin has also piloted a much-touted pivot to Asia, coinciding with renewed U.S. interest in the area. A good expression of intent was Russia's hosting of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in 2012 in Vladivostok, near Russia's borders with China and North Korea. Although its efforts in Asia have been limited by more direct interests in Russia's periphery and in Europe, Moscow recently has been able to look more to the east. Part of this renewed interest involves finding new export markets for Russian hydrocarbons. Russia's economy relies on energy exports, particularly crude oil and natural gas exported via pipeline to the West. However, Western Europe is diversifying its energy sources as new supplies come online out of a desire to reduce its dependence on Russian energy supplies . This has

LONDON POLICE INDIRECTLY ENCOURAGE CRIMINALS TO ATTACK RUSSIAN DIPLOMATIC PROPERTY

ILLUSTRATIVE IMAGE A few days ago an unknown perpetrator trespassed on the territory of the Russian Trade Delegation in London, causing damage to the property and the vehicles belonging to the trade delegation , Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said during the September 12 press briefing. The diplomat revealed the response by the London police was discouraging. Police told that the case does not have any prospects and is likely to be closed. This was made despite the fact that the British law enforcement was provided with video surveillance tapes and detailed information shedding light on the incident. By this byehavior, British law inforcements indirectly encourage criminals to continue attacks on Russian diplomatic property in the UK. Zakharova’s statement on “Trespassing on the Russian Trade Mission premises in London” ( source ): During our briefings, we have repeatedly discussed compliance with the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, specif

ISDEI Instituto de Seguridad, Defensa y Estudios Internacionales

Search This Blog