France the Bombs of September

By Jill Smolowe

Wednesday is a busy day for the Tati discount store on the Rue de Rennes in Paris. School is out that afternoon, and mothers, particularly those with modest incomes, flock to Tati with their children in search of bargains. Thus the sidewalk in front of the store was bustling last week at 5:28 p.m., when two black-mustachioed men in a black BMW drove past. As the car slowed down, the man on the passenger side got out and dropped a package into a trash can near the front door. He quickly hopped back into the car and rode off. A few seconds later an explosion shattered the happy sounds of shoppers. "There was simply a noise, very loud, then the screams of the people," recalled a witness. In an instant the sidewalk was littered with the bodies of the dead, the dying and the wounded. Shattered glass, bits of clothing and pieces of human flesh turned the scene into a grotesque tableau of gore and destruction. The toll: five dead and 53 wounded.

The explosion outside Tati was the fifth terrorist bombing to hit the French capital in ten days. Only two days earlier, a violent blast in the driver's license section of Paris police headquarters had killed one and injured 51. Like that attack and others earlier at a post office, a cafeteria and a pub, the Tati outrage appeared to be the work of the Committee for Solidarity with Arab and Middle Eastern Political Prisoners (C.S.P.P.A.). The shadowy organization, apparently made up of Marxist Maronite Christians and based in Lebanon, has claimed responsibility for ten Paris bombings over the past nine months, leaving ten dead and 257 wounded.

The explosions dramatically darkened the mood of the City of Light and its people. "For the second time in my life," said an 84-year-old woman, "Paris is a city under enemy occupation." Everywhere there were police and military troops, checking parcels, inspecting shoulder bags, patrolling public toilets. At entrances to shops, subways and theaters, uniformed officers demanded, "Your papers, please." Along the Avenue des Champs Elysees, the grandest of the city's boulevards, crowds were thin, and sidewalk cafes were half empty. Long, snaking lines at the cinemas shortened. Tables at some of Paris' most exclusive restaurants sat idle. Parisians, who normally consider the city's streets and cafes to be extensions of their apartments, were suddenly clinging close to home.

The nervous public mood was reflected in the headlines that hit newsstands. PARIS PANIC! screamed Le Matin. PARIS-BEIRUT, read Le Parisien Libere. Over the next few days the parallel with the Middle East nightmare was eerily driven home as militant Lebanese Shi'ite Muslims fired on French peacekeeping troops in southern Lebanon, and Colonel Christian Goutierre, 54, the French military attache in Beirut, was gunned down. Responsibility for the assassination was claimed by the Revenge and Justice Front, a group that has no known links to the C.S.P.P.A.

The Paris bombers' stated goal is to secure the release of three terrorists held in French prisons, most notably Georges Ibrahim Abdallah, 35. He is the presumed leader of the Lebanese Armed Revolutionary Factions (F.A.R.L.), which French authorities believe is simply C.S.P.P.A. by another name. Abdallah is serving a four-year sentence for possession of false identity papers and association with criminals, and is under investigation in connection with the 1982 killings in Paris of a U.S. military attache and an Israeli diplomat. But some officials in Paris believe the bombers, possibly aided by Syria or Iran, may have an additional aim: to pressure France to ) curtail its activist role in the Middle East.

As the unrest continued, critics suggested that France had, to a degree, brought the trouble on itself by dealing behind the scenes with terrorist groups in the past. Last February, for instance, the government released two members of the Abu Nidal faction of Palestinians after the pair had served half their 15-year prison sentences for murdering members of another faction. The government insisted that the two had been released under normal parole procedures and that no deal had been made with Abu Nidal.

In any event, the murky C.S.P.P.A. has clearly dealt France a fierce blow. Not even in the heyday of Italy's Red Brigades and West Germany's Baader- Meinhoff gang in the '70s has Europe seen such a wave of indiscriminate attacks. In just ten days the bombings have killed eight people and injured an additional 162. The night after the Tati bombing, Premier Jacques Chirac told the nation, "The assassins, I assure you, will not escape us." But the police have not yet made any arrests, and insiders close to the investigation say there are few leads.

The terrorists are embarked on a killing spree that seems custom-designed to embarrass Chirac, who campaigned on a law-and-order platform in last spring's elections. Last week the Premier was on his own as Socialist President Francois Mitterrand pursued a state visit in Indonesia. Although the two men conferred by phone, the President refused to return home, insisting he would not allow terrorists to win a victory by forcing him to change his plans.

In the face of his first major crisis, Chirac last Sunday outlined security steps intended to counter the rising terrorist tide. The measures included the institution of visa requirements for citizens of all countries except France's eleven European Community partners and Switzerland, and the mobilization of 1,000 army troops to help patrol France's largely unguarded borders. Chirac also ordered France's secret services to track down suspected terrorists, and warned, "We will make it very costly for all those we find to be directing the terrorists."

The C.S.P.P.A. responded with a communique warning that the government "would be well advised to avoid noisy and swaggering declarations whose only effect will be the lengthening of the list of victims." The following day, the group planted the bomb at police headquarters. The symbolic value of the target was not lost. Said one license-bureau employee: "It was a true attack against the government, against the police, a defiance of the French state."

That blast, however, did not compare with the savage destruction of the Tati bombing two days later. On the sidewalk, a bare, shredded pair of legs protruded from a plastic tarp. One foot was covered with a bloody sock, the other had been blown off. Passersby tried to comfort the wounded. A young girl was flanked by a man who stroked her dark hair and another who held her hand. A boy in a red-and-blue jacket cried uncontrollably.

After the first few minutes, the sounds of weeping and shouting gave way to silence, broken only by the wail of sirens. By 7:30 p.m., as a cold drizzle began to fall, the last of the victims had been removed. A woman who lives near the bombing site muttered bitterly, "Today I saw children wounded. I heard children crying. I will never forget the sound. They must punish these people."

That was easier said than done. Police made what they initially thought was a breakthrough in the case by identifying the two men believed to have been inside the black BMW. Based on the testimony of two eyewitnesses, the suspects were identified as Emile Abdallah, 28, brother of the imprisoned F.A.R.L. leader, and Salim el Khoury, 31. The day after the attack, however, two journalists from Agence France-Presse met with Emile in the family's native village of Qubayat, in northern Lebanon. A study of travel schedules suggested that, theoretically, he could have got from France to Lebanon in the time between the bombing and the interview, but just barely.

Emile's appearance in Lebanon recalled an episode earlier in the week. French authorities took the unprecedented step of offering a $150,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of two other brothers of Georges Abdallah's: Robert, 20, and Maurice, 23. Robert was identified by an eyewitness as the young man who left a bomb in a cafeteria on Sept. 12. Maurice is suspected of, among other things, taking part in last year's kidnaping in Lebanon of a French official. Photographs of the brothers appeared in most major French newspapers last week, and the government printed 200,000 wanted posters.

Half an hour before the Tati bomb went off in Paris, however, Robert and Maurice called a press conference in the northern Lebanese city of Tripoli and denied any connection with the attacks. Maurice claimed he had left France two years ago, and Robert said he had never been there. Both said they were + prepared to turn themselves in to Lebanese or French authorities if they were formally charged with crimes. They too could have returned to Lebanon after recent bombings. Their appearance nonetheless embarrassed French authorities.

In Paris, police are attempting to move against suspected terrorist supporters. After the latest wave of bombings began two weeks ago, 21 alleged sympathizers, most of them from the Middle East, were expelled from the country. And last week investigators fanned out in the Arab student and business communities in search of people who were thought to be providing logistical or financial support to the F.A.R.L. Five remain under administrative detention prior to expulsion.

Some French feared last week that such tactics might trigger a backlash against all Arabs living in Paris. But most Parisians were more concerned about their safety. "I find it very worrying," said Agnes Cavroy, 26, an advertising-agency employee. "You are at the mercy of the bombs." Some far- right politicians talked guardedly about invoking Article 16 of the constitution, giving the President power to rule by decree during a national emergency. At the moment such a measure seems farfetched, but its very mention attested to the siege mentality that has seized Paris.

With reporting by Jordan Bonfante and B.J. Phillips/ Paris