French police are drawing up contingency plans for a possible nerve-gas attack on football fans during the European championships this summer.
The preparations have been given added urgency by reports that the Islamist cell behind the recent Paris and Brussels terrorist attacks is plotting to hit France again as it plays host to the biggest European football tournament yet. The cell’s Syrian-based commanders have singled out France because of its role in the war on Islamist terrorism abroad and its tough line on jihadists at home.
Supporters of England, Wales, Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland will be among the 2.5 million fans expected to attend 51 matches in ten cities from June 10 to July 10; a schedule that presents an enormous challenge for France’s security agencies. In the past month, emergency services have held training drills simulating sarin-gas attacks at a stadium and at a gathering of fans watching a match on a big screen. A third exercise involved a simulated shooting and a suicide bombing.
Security analysts said that France was being targeted by Isis partly because the terrorist organisation perceives it as being hostile towards the five million Muslims living within its borders. Legislation banning Islamic headscarves in schools, and burkas and niqabs anywhere in public, has created tensions, and Isis has frequently denounced French secular values as an affront to Islam.
Anger felt by many Muslims over the freedom afforded to publications such as Charlie Hebdo to lampoon their beliefs — albeit along with those of all other religious groups — has added fuel to the fire. President Hollande has further antagonised Islamists with his support for the war on terrorism, not only in Iraq and Syria but also in Mali, where French troops halted a jihadist advance on the capital.
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Security agencies believe that other countries fighting Isis, including Britain and Russia, may also be targeted during Euro 2016. England play Russia in Marseilles on June 11.
Concerns have grown since the arrest in Brussels of Mohamed Abrini, the “man in the hat” airport bomber, who confessed to being a member of the terrorist cell that killed 130 people in Paris in November and a further 32 in Brussels last month.
Belgian prosecutors said they had evidence that he was the third terrorist at the airport, who fled the scene as Ibrahim el-Bakraoui, 29, and Najim Laachraoui, 24, detonated their bombs. Abrini admitted as much, and went on to tell detectives that the cell had gone into action in Brussels after the arrest last month of Salah Abdeslam, 26.
He said they had feared that police were closing in on them, and had decided to strike fast and close to home, in the city’s underground and airport — but the original plan had been to hit France.
Libération, the French daily, said he had identified the football championships this summer as a prime target for his terrorist cell. A police source said his confession confirmed what officers already suspected: that there was an Islamist threat hanging over the tournament.
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An anti-terrorist officer told AFP, the French press agency, last month that there were particular concerns over the fan zones planned in several centres where an estimated seven million supporters without tickets will gather to watch the games on giant screens. The fans will be searched, and may have to pass through metal detectors, but security officials said that the areas would be difficult to protect completely.
The first of the training drills centering on a sarin-gas attack was held in Nîmes, southern France, last month. About 1,200 volunteers took part and the number of likely deaths was put at 180. A similar exercise was held last week at Geoffroy-Guichard stadium in St Etienne, where England will play Slovakia in their third match of the group stage.
Sarin gas, which is invisible and odourless, causes convulsions. It burns membranes and triggers a surge in mucus production — with the result that those who inhale it suffocate, in effect, on their own fluids. Sufferers can survive if they are injected soon after an attack with a drug called atropine.
The training drills envisaged a drone emitting sarin gas as it flew over a stadium before crashing into one of the stands. Officials said the response plan was based on the assumption that 262 people would be affected.
A third training exercise was held at a fan zone in Bordeaux, with the “terrorists” activating a suicide vest, firing into the crowd and taking hostages.
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The ten-man terrorist cell which struck in Paris in November included three jihadists who blew themselves up outside the national football stadium during a game between France and Germany. Abdeslam said the plan had been to gain access to the stadium and to detonate the suicide vests among the fans. The bombers had hoped to get in without tickets, only to discover that security was too tight.
El-Bakraoui’s laptop was later found to contain a folder named “targets”, with a number of French venues and events identified. An audio file proved that the cell was in close contact with Isis commanders in Syria. In a recorded conversation the terrorists ran through different scenarios for attacks, choosing the best place and time.
La Défense business area of Paris was among the targets mentioned, as were the offices of Civitas, a Catholic association.
The laptop was discovered in a bin near Rue Max Roos, where the terrorism cell had a bomb factory. El-Bakraoui is believed to have left it there for an accomplice to pick up after his death at the airport. The computer contained his final message to his mother.
La Défense, where 180,000 people work in banks and brokerages, was also a target for the terrorists who struck in Paris in November. Abdelhamid Abaaoud, 28, who died in a gun battle with police five days after the Paris attacks, was planning to strike at a police station and a shopping centre there.
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Hasna Aitboulahcen, his female cousin, had bought suits for him and his accomplice, Chakib Akrouh, 25, so that they could pass themselves off as business people.
