French munitions theft: Around 200 detonators and grenades stolen from military site

Around 200 detonators and grenades have been stolen from a military site in southern France, according to officials.

Police investigating the case believe the munitions were stolen overnight at the Mirimas site, which is run by a combination of military services west of Marseille.

Thieves appear to have cut through a fence to enter the high-security site, according to a police official who spoke to The Associated Press on a condition of anonymity.

French munitions theft: Around 200 detonators and grenades stolen from military site

Wow! This is a worrying development, considering the various Islamist attacks that France (and Europe as a whole) have suffered.....

I hope they track them down soonish, otherwise this could be a nightmare scenario...

a reply to: stumason

We will find them sooner or later

Why else would anyone need this stuff except for another terrorist attack? This is something to keep an eye on.

a reply to: stumason

One week before Bestille day interesting ??????

So, out of the 200 items stolen, how many were grenades. Detonator are only worrisome if whomever stole them already have a C-4 type explosive on hand, otherwise detonators are something I used to set off in pond in Mississippi for fun....the most they can do is take a couple fingers off if holding them.

I would think any legit outfit would already have detonators on hand if building explosives....that is likely the easiest part of an explosive to buy.

a reply to: Vasa Croe

Who know's - it seems the French were trying to keep this under wraps (likely to prevent any kind of panic) and it was an "anonymous source" that leaked it.

But, 200 items is a lot, so even if only 1 in 10 is actual explosives, that's enough to cause some misery somewhere.

EDIT: Also, explosives (and detonators) are highly regulated and outside the military, only demolitions people can easily obtain them. I'd argue that the explosive is "easier" to get as it can be manufactured by anyone with a working knowledge of chemistry. A reliable detonator coupled with some home made explosive could be what we're looking at.

originally posted by: stumason
a reply to: Vasa Croe

Who know's - it seems the French were trying to keep this under wraps (likely to prevent any kind of panic) and it was an "anonymous source" that leaked it.

But, 200 items is a lot, so even if only 1 in 10 is actual explosives, that's enough to cause some misery somewhere.

EDIT: Also, explosives (and detonators) are highly regulated and outside the military, only demolitions people can easily obtain them. I'd argue that the explosive is "easier" to get as it can be manufactured by anyone with a working knowledge of chemistry. A reliable detonator coupled with some home made explosive could be what we're looking at.

While I agree it is enough to create misery somewhere, detonators are not hard to come by or make on your own. They are simply a electric wire with an explosive cap at the end. Anyone in the construction industry can buy them. I played with them in high school. We used to blow them off in the woods and creek behind my house. I probably set off 50 or 60 myself between the age of 14-17 and could have done plenty more.

I guess they may be a lot more regulated now, 20+ years later, but when I was younger, they were easy to get.

Sounds like perfect foundations for a false flag.

Marseille has a lot of immigrants from North Africa. When I was in France in the 80's my host family told me to "watch out for Arabs" in Marseille.

originally posted by: tramman2000
Sounds like perfect foundations for a false flag.

Oh for heaven's sake -....

originally posted by: stumason
a reply to: Vasa Croe


EDIT: Also, explosives (and detonators) are highly regulated and outside the military, only demolitions people can easily obtain them. I'd argue that the explosive is "easier" to get as it can be manufactured by anyone with a working knowledge of chemistry. A reliable detonator coupled with some home made explosive could be what we're looking at.

I Agree Stu, it may be east to get hold of detonators in the USA, but it's totally different here in Europe in the same way that you can buy assault weapons in Wall-Mart in the US, but I don't imagine Tesco sell many in Manchester :-)

But seriously, getting hold of diesel and fertiliser is easy....making a reliable detonator or getting hold of them is far more difficult. I agree, this is worrying

Cheers
Robbie

originally posted by: tramman2000
Sounds like perfect foundations for a false flag.

So why go through all the trouble of breaking in and stealing them?
Why risk getting caught when these people could just use what they have through legal means?
Why doesn't every "false flag" involve theft of munitions?
Why release that information to the public?

Again, whatever happens someone will claim it's a false flag.

If this news hadn't come out - you'd claim false flag.
If they never stole it - you'd claim false flag.
If they release the news - you'd claim false flag.
If some rogue group is proven to have done it - you'd claim false flag.

No matter what happens, you would claim that it's evidence of a false flag.

Please, people, develop some damn common sense and use those analytical brains to come up with something better than "FALSE FLAG" for everything.

a reply to: Rocker2013

Well said. According to folks here, these days, it seems like everything that ever happens is either a false flag, or MK-Ultra shenanigans.

a reply to: stumason

The problem with this is that everyone would know this is a risky move, and it's a presumably such a large site, so they knew where they were going and what to target.

This suggests that it was an organized group, and that they had intelligence from within the site to know where to go and what to target.

If that's the case, then it's likely they would have known what they were grabbing.

It's also plausible that the authorities could be downplaying this to some extent. It's not unusual for the PR branch of any government to try to minimize a story and make it seem less significant than it is, so we also have to wonder what these people really got away with and whether this is a very conservative estimate.

Personally, I think the UK should now be stepping up security along all ports and the tunnel. Other countries bordering France should be doing the same. This is not just a threat to France itself but to all its neighbours.

I would also expect something to happen relatively soon, I doubt any group holding this would want to do so for long before using it.

a reply to: stumason

from the report and picture of the OP link...
the 9 storehouses contents must have been known as the thieves took only 200 items, about what 2 people could carry... the thieves then scrambled through the 2 perimeter fences which had holes previously cut in them for the entry phase...
'
then, in the amount of time needed to get the cases of grenades and detonators and flee the munitions storage area, there were no guards walking the compound or else just not seeing the holes cut into the set of chain-link fences some 10-15 yards apart...


I say inside job...disguised as a break-in





I attempted to find an image of a case of grenades, to try to establish the bulk of the stolen explosives

but only found this: www.militaryfactory.com...

I suppose that a case might have perhaps 24 each of those sized grenades (used by USA & Canada - so France would be similar)
which might mean 1 case of grenades and 2 smaller packages of detonators (ammo box sized) might make the total of ~200 devices

making a road-side IED of diesel/fertilizer & having 150+ detonators would make for a pretty destructive terror campaign
and 24 fragmentary grenades would probably fetch €90 or $100 each to someone in financial need

This wasn't hidden from the public- it was broadcast all over the news as soon as they became aware it had happened.
This stuff wasn't being guarded over the weekend, it took a few days for anyone to notice it gone. It was hidden in little huts built next to a highway, for chrissakes! This didn't take a highly informed, planning group! It could have been kids!

That is what is so scary about it (if you know a bit about the state of things in France). We have young, troubled, second and third generation immigrants who are vulnerable to recruitment in terrorist or Jihadist ideologies here. Suddenly having these things could lead to them searching out contacts in excitement of doing something with them. (they took explosives as well as detonators, BTW).

We were attacked by nearby groups of arab teens for a while (why we moved) who targetted us because they heard I am american. This was during "Desert Storm". They didn't understand anything about that conflict, and their parent roots were in Algeria and Morocco; but they had a vague notion of americans being the enemies of Islam, and that was enough to give them an excuse to target us. Rebels without a cause search for a cause.

This is what worries me. The terrorist attacks we've had got a LOT of publicity. For a kid who feels angry, insignificant and confused, it's a great opportunity to feel important and be known.

originally posted by: St Udio
I say inside job...disguised as a break-in

I've worked in security, and managed sensitive sites, and while you could be right there is no reason why a group monitoring that site couldn't have done this.

Patrols along that perimeter fence would likely have been easily timed. You just wait in cover for the patrol to pass and then once out of direct view you move.

Without knowing the timing of patrols and so on it's impossible to know, or to suggest, that this was an inside job.

The public should now be asking the government some very hard questions.

1. What was the patrol schedule?
2. What do the patrol records show?
3. Are those patrols random or not?
4. Why is there no perimeter alarm on such a sensitive site?
5. Why were no alarms activated in the building itself?

For a site like this there needs to be a perimeter alarm, and each unit also alarmed. There also needs to be random patrols more than once an hour.

My guess is that they never invested in alarm systems, or never kept them operational, and the security became incredibly complacent through lack of oversight.

The biggest problem in security is complacency, with staff getting into easily predictable routines and making their lives easier through breaching their own standards (not locking doors, not setting alarms, not documenting things they should be).

I can almost guarantee that any report into this will show complacent officers and lack of maintenance on alarm and security systems.

originally posted by: Bluesma
It was hidden in little huts built next to a highway, for chrissakes! This didn't take a highly informed, planning group! It could have been kids!

While I agree with everything else you've said, this is confusing.
You're making it seem as though this wasn't within the armory, that it was just sitting in a shed at the side of a public road. That's not the case according to all reports.

This was a secure site, and there would have been security. They clearly cut through two fences to gain access to it, and they seemingly only targeted one building. This would suggest that it was a planned theft based on intelligence about where these thing were, which means they knew where to go and what to take.

Your suggestion that this was just kids breaking into a shed at the side of the road seems significantly disingenuous.

originally posted by: Rocker2013

originally posted by: Bluesma
It was hidden in little huts built next to a highway, for chrissakes! This didn't take a highly informed, planning group! It could have been kids!

While I agree with everything else you've said, this is confusing.
You're making it seem as though this wasn't within the armory, that it was just sitting in a shed at the side of a public road. That's not the case according to all reports.

This was a secure site, and there would have been security. They clearly cut through two fences to gain access to it, and they seemingly only targeted one building. This would suggest that it was a planned theft based on intelligence about where these thing were, which means they knew where to go and what to take.

Your suggestion that this was just kids breaking into a shed at the side of the road seems significantly disingenuous.

I don't know, That is what they are saying on the radio and tv here in France. That the specific storage huts broken into were next to the highway, half buried round huts, that were mostly hidden by brush, used to be patrolled regularly, but were not at this time (you have to understand the mediteranean mentality to even grasp how that happens... they are guarded "normalement". In other word, when the guards don't have cafe or apperitif to drink, cigarettes to smoke, or one of their many paid vacation days to take. )

I remember a while back, there were a few prisoners who escaped from a prison here, and at the time they escaped, there was ONE employee guarding the prison.

But I would guess, though the french would easily digest this lack of discipline in the case, they'd probably want to groom themselves a bit better for international media.