NEWS,04.04.2012.

French anti-terror raids: security and protection, or electioneering?

Nicolas Sarkozy's opponents query the 'spectacle' of the raids and their timing in the wake of Mohamed Merah's killing spreeOnce again, France woke to news of a string of dawn raids against suspected Islamists across the country, from the old industrial heartlands of the north to Marseille on the southern coast. Days earlier, rolling TV-news and breakfast bulletins broadcast dramatic images as elite anti-terrorist squads in black body armour smashed windows and bashed down doors shouting "Police!", emerging with hand-cuffed suspects with their faces covered, on residential streets from Nantes to Toulouse.Less than three weeks before the first round of the presidential election, France is gripped by one of its biggest crackdowns on suspected radical Islamists in recent memory. Amplified by TV coverage, it has been led by an unrelenting Nicolas Sarkozy, who is also battling for re-election. Opposition politicians now openly question whether the timing and TV crews are as much linked to electioneering as anti-terrorist crime prevention.France is still in a state of shock and confusion after Mohamed Merah, a 23-year-old unemployed panelbeater from Toulouse, went on a 10-day killing spree across south-west France, executing three paratroopers and shooting children and a rabbi at the gates of a Jewish school. Following a dramatic 32-hour siege at his flat, Merah died in a hail of police bullets as he leapt from the balcony. But questions remain over how Merah  who claimed inspiration from al-Qaida, was heavily armed, on police intelligence files and had been under surveillance  was not picked up earlier and his attacks prevented. Some commentators warn that the new anti-terrorist crackdown, which included the deportation of a handful of preachers, should not be used as a smokescreen to distract from potential failings in the Merah operation.The right-wing Sarkozy had long ago seen his election strategy compared to that of his friend George W Bush's 2004 fight for re-election in the US: styling himself as the only trustworthy protector of the nation in the face of serious threat. A month ago, the danger was impending financial meltdown. Now, it is closer to Bush's own target: Islamist fundamentalism and terrorism. Sarkozy last week likened the Toulouse killings to France's 9/11. The scale of the attacks maybe different, he said, but the national "traumatism" was the same.The justice system will have the last word on the arrests, which were not directly linked to Merah. Preliminary charges have been filed against 13 alleged members of a banned fundamentalist group. An intelligence chief suggested militants were planning a kidnapping. The 10 arrested on Wednesday were suspected of links to Islamist websites and of threatening violence in online forums.But in an election more than ever determined by TV coverage, Sarkozy's opponents queried the "spectacle" of the raids and their timing in the wake of the Toulouse killings. "I'm not questioning all that's being done. I'm simply saying that we should have perhaps done more before," said François Hollande, the Socialist candidate. The government insists the arrests had nothing to do with the elections, but with the security and protection of France.The "Toulouse effect" on the presidential race has so far been limited. Crucially, it allowed Sarkozy, during a week of national mourning, to regain presidential stature. Before Toulouse, he had been heckled so badly on the campaign trail in the Basque country that he took refuge in a bar. Now, over 70% of French people approve his stance at the time of the Toulouse killings. His poll ratings have lifted giving him a narrow lead in the first-round, but Hollande remains ahead in the final 6 May run-off.Yet the shootings have not changed French voters' chief topics of concern: crippling unemployment and the difficulty making ends meet. Crime and terrorism remain low on their list. Indeed, many French people feel disappointed that the presidential debate isn't addressing their everyday worries, and abstentionism could be high. But the extreme-right Front National's Marine Le Pen has used Toulouse to hammer home her rhetoric on fears about Islam,terrorism, immigration and what she warned were fundamentalists festering on France's notorious suburban high-rise estates (even if the raids were often carried out on smart semi-detached houses). To win the election, Sarkozy knows he must court Le Pen's voters. Politicians and religious leaders, have warned against stigmatising French Muslims a long held fear following Sarkozy's recent Front National-inspired election crusade against halal meat.

 

Anna Chapman never got anywhere near seducing a member of US cabinet

Anna Chapman, the famously sultry Russian operative who was arrested in the US with nine others for espionage in 2010, was apparently "close to seducing a sitting member of President Barack Obama's cabinet."The reports were based on an interview that Frank Figliuzzi, the FBI's assistant director of counterintelligence, gave to the BBC in which he called the confessed spy a "honeytrap", adding: "She got close enough to disturb us."The story went viral.There's only one problem with it, though: it's not true in the slightest."It's a completely bogus story,"a defense department spokesman told. "They made a giant leap."Figliuzzi never mentions Chapman, 30, by name in the BBC video. And while he did say that one of the 10 operatives had gotten "close enough to a sitting US cabinet member" to "disturb" the agency, he wasn't talking about Chapman. Nor was he talking about seduction. The New York Daily News picked up the story under the drooling headline: "Sexy Russian spygal Anna Chapman got too close to President Obama's inner circle, FBI official tells BBC."heir article, which ran Wednesday, is maddeningly confusing.In the fourth paragraph, the Daily News reports: A high-ranking FBI official says Anna Chapman was busted in 2010 spy ring because flame-haired sexpot got too close to sitting President Obama cabinet member.But the sixth paragraph directly contradicts this: Flame-haired sexpot Anna Chapman was quickly fingered as the tight-bodied temptress by the British press  but the needle slowly moved in the direction of dowdy New Jersey housewife Cynthia Murphy, who was also taken down in the spy sting.It's not until the twelfth paragraph that the paper admits: Figliuzzi refused to reveal the cabinet member  or the female spy.But the "honey trap" may have actually been G-man speak for cold, hard cash  and the access it can gain with powerful people.So why headline it otherwise?It was ABC News that actually bothered to pick up a phone to call the FBI. The network reports that the spy Figliuzzi was referring to is, in fact, Cynthia Murphy. And by "getting too close" to an Obama cabinet member, he meant as a financial advisor to a Hillary Clinton fundraiser.The FBI, for its part, released a statement denying that Chapman attempted to seduce a cabinet member. Mr Figliuzzi's comments to BBC were consistent with and confined to the information outlined in the criminal complaint that was filed nearly two years ago. There is no allegation or suggestion in the complaint that Anna Chapman or anyone else associated with this investigation attempted to seduce a US cabinet officialChapman, of course, is a red-headed beauty who has since modeled in lingerie for Maxim and hosted a TV programme in Russia. She was ratings and Internet gold when her story broke in 2010  a femme fatale in the flesh. So it's perhaps somewhat understandable that the Telegraph and the Daily News would leap at the opportunity to splash her come-hither photograph on its pages without actually bothering to fact check their stories.