AL QAEDA THREATENS FRANCE FOR ELECTING "ZIONIST SARKOZY"

Al-Qaeda group threatens attacks in France
DUBAI, May 15, 2007 (AFP) - An Al-Qaeda front group in Europe threatened on Tuesday to launch bloody attacks in France in response to the election of "crusader and Zionist" Nicolas Sarkozy as president.

"As you have chosen the crusader and Zionist Sarkozy as a leader ... we in the Abu Hafs al-Masri Brigades warn you that the coming days will see a bloody jihadist campaign ... in the capital of Sarkozy," the group's "Europe division" said in an Internet statement addressed to the French people.

The campaign will be "against all those who allow themselves to follow the policy" of the US administration, said the statement whose authenticity could not verified.

The Abu Hafs al-Masri Brigades takes its name from an Al-Qaeda commander killed during the US-led invasion of Afghanistan in October 2001. The group previously claimed responsibility for the July 2005 terror attacks in London, as well those in Madrid in March 2004 and in Istanbul in November 2003. Just after the London bombings, the group warned European nations to pull their troops out of Iraq within a month or face more attacks like them.