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posted by CoolHand on Wednesday April 22 2015, @06:52PM   Printer-friendly
from the geeks-who-can't-handle-their-guns dept.

BBC News reports that French police have arrested a 24-year old Algerian man accused of plotting a terror attack against churches who called an ambulance after suffering self-inflicted gunshot wounds:

The man, a computer science student who had lived in France for several years, was detained on Sunday after he apparently shot himself by accident and called for an ambulance. Police followed a trail of blood leading to his vehicle, where they found notes "unambiguously demonstrating" he planned an imminent attack, according to [Minister of the Interior] Mr Cazeneuve. "Several war weapons, hand guns, ammunition, bullet-proof vests, and computer and telephone hardware" were discovered at his car and home, Mr Cazeneuve added.

No links between the man and other terror groups was found, although he was previously flagged by police after he expressed the desire to travel to Syria to fight with militants, a sentiments shared by hundreds of other French citizens already fighting with ISIS. The man has also been connected to the death of a woman found in her car near Paris, although no details have yet been released concerning his link to that case.

 
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  • (Score: 5, Interesting) by The Archon V2.0 on Wednesday April 22 2015, @07:43PM

    by The Archon V2.0 (3887) on Wednesday April 22 2015, @07:43PM (#174092)

    > That adds to the evidence that, in the fight to protect people, massive surveillance and specialists' judgment calls are often no match for the sheer dumbness of many criminals (too bad not all are quite so dumb).

    You don't need to compare it to the dumbness of criminals: it's just still more evidence that massive surveillance is next-to-worthless. I mean, look at this guy. The article says he "was known to security services as having expressed a wish to travel to Syria to fight with Islamist militants". I don't know how they got that tidbit, but it hardly matters. Here they had a guy they knew was pro-militant who collected guns and bulletproof vests, planned an attack, maybe murdered someone as implied by that whole 'linked to Aurelie Chatelain' thing, and wasn't caught until he shot himself! If they can't do surveillance well enough to catch a known militant getting weapons what the hell good will MORE surveillance do?

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  • (Score: 4, Interesting) by Ethanol-fueled on Wednesday April 22 2015, @08:22PM

    by Ethanol-fueled (2792) on Wednesday April 22 2015, @08:22PM (#174097) Homepage

    All of you are barking up the wrong tree.

    Maybe the authorities knew and wanted to let it happen so they could justify even more crackdowns on civil liberties and other quaint things?

    • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 23 2015, @09:31AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 23 2015, @09:31AM (#174236)

      Never attribute to malice that which can be explained by incompetence

    • (Score: 2) by The Archon V2.0 on Thursday April 23 2015, @12:18PM

      by The Archon V2.0 (3887) on Thursday April 23 2015, @12:18PM (#174260)

      Something tells me they'd have done a better job of it. A conspiracy to gain power for themselves by looking like better-armed Keystone Cops doesn't seem productive.

  • (Score: 1) by mvdwege on Thursday April 23 2015, @12:12PM

    by mvdwege (3388) on Thursday April 23 2015, @12:12PM (#174256)

    Who says they weren't waiting for him to start making his move before arresting him, and were pre-empted by the gun accident?

    • (Score: 2) by The Archon V2.0 on Thursday April 23 2015, @12:25PM

      by The Archon V2.0 (3887) on Thursday April 23 2015, @12:25PM (#174262)

      If he's "making his move", then he's already armed, armored, and expecting police intervention. That's a good way to end up with a lot of dead cops and bystanders.