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AZF was the name of a chemical factory near Toulouse, France, which exploded on September 21, 2001. In the spring of 2004, a terrorist group adopted the same name and threatened the French government with bombings on railways.
AZF Explosion at a Toulouse chemical factory
on September 21, 2001, a huge explosion occured in the AZF fertilizer factory in Toulouse, France, belonging to the Grande Paroisse branch of the Total group.
The results of the official enquiry were that a warehouse of ammonium nitrate had exploded following from improper handling of this dangerous material, including mixing with chemical impurities.
Three hundred tons of ammonium nitrades were stored (the maximum capacity was 2,000 tons). The whole factory was destroyed, it made a crater of 20 to 30 m deep (65 to 100 ft), with adiameter of 200 m (650 ft); steel girders were found 3 km away from the explosion. The explosion was heard 80 km away (50 miles).
The factory was close to the city: one of the most inhabited area, Le Mirail, is just one kilometer away (0.6 miles), several schools, one hospital and the psychatric hospital were useless and had to be evacuated.
The disaster caused 30 deaths (28 from the factory, one lycéen — secondary school/high school pupil — from a neighbouring school), 2,500 seriously wounded and 8,000 light casualties. Two third of the windows of the city exploded, causing 70 eye wounds and several thousands wounds had to be sutured.
40,000 people — 10% of the population — were homeless during a few days.
Terrorist Group
AZF is a terrorist group residing in France. The group is believed to have taken its name from the explosion in Toulouse[1] (http://www.uneptie.org/pc/apell/disasters/toulouse/home.html).
The group has attempted to extort money from the government of France by threatening to place explosives along the nation's rail lines. The French government tried to pay them twice, but the first time the helicopter couldn't find the transfer point. The second time it couldn't start because of fog. The French government placed ads in Liberation, a newspaper in France to contact the terrorists.
Once, to demonstrate their power, they led the French railway workers to a bomb, who neutralized it. A week or so later another bomb was found on the TGV train tracks, but it wasn't live and wasn't identical to the one found earlier [2] (http://www.expatica.com/source/site_article.asp?subchannel_id=58&story_id=5959). It is not sure if that was the work of AZF.
A letter states that they are temporarily stopping their operations as of March 2004 due to logistical problems. It is still unclear if this letter is from the real AZF. [3] (http://www.gulf-daily-news.com/Articles.asp?Article=77621&Sn=WORL)
The authors were not identified and their motivations are still unclear. The most probable hypothesis is the money. They probably stopped their activity because of the train bombing in Madrid the 11 March 2004.
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