1995 bombings in France

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In 1995, the GIA Islamist militant group staged a series of attacks against the French public, targeting public transportation. These attacks killed 8 and injured more than 100. Apparently, the attacks were designed to be a broadening of the civil war in Algeria, a former French colony.

On July 25, 1995, a gas bottle exploded in station Saint Michel of line B of the RER (Paris regional train network). 8 were killed and 80 wounded.

On August 17, a bomb at the Arc de Triomphe wounded 17 people. On August 26, a huge bomb was found on the railroad tracks of a high-speed rail line near Lyon. On September 3, a bomb malfunctioned in a square in Paris, wounding 4. On September 7, a car bomb at a Jewish school in Lyons wounded 14.

A leader of the group, Khaled Kelkal, was identified through fingerprints left on unexploded bombs. He was killed on September 29 by members of the French EPIGN gendarmerie unit when allegedly resisting arrest in hills near Lyon.

Yet the attacks continued. On October 6, a gas bottle exploded in station Maison Blanche of the Paris Métro, wounding 13. On October 17, a gas bottle exploded in the Orsay station of RER Line B, wounding 29.

Members of the groups have since been prosecuted for various charges. A number of suspects have fled to the United Kingdom. The United Kingdom had declined to extradite suspect Rachid Ramda, citing possible mistreatment of informants and an alleged impossibility for a Muslim suspect to obtain a fair trial in France. However, on December 1, 2005, Rachid Ramda was extradited to France in connection with the bombing on the Paris Metro (BBC News). It is widely alleged outside of the United Kingdom that the earlier reluctance to extradite terror suspects and the toleration of radical islamist cells on British soil was meant to avoid terror acts on British soil itself. (New-York Times, Le Figaro). It is yet unknown what the impact of the July 2005 London bombings will have on that question.

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