Patrick Calvar, head of DGSI, warned of 'new attacks' on May 10. His warning to French MPs came a week before Flight MS804 went missing. Mr Calvar said ISIS and Al-Qaeda wanted to create a 'climate of panic'. France will be hosting the Euro 2016 football tournament next month. “We know that Daesh is planning new attacks...and that France is clearly targeted” (Patrick Calvar). The DGSI (General Directorate for Internal Security) is France's equivalent of the MI5 and is responsible for guarding against internal threats.
The head of France's internal intelligence agency had warned
the country was being 'clearly targeted' by ISIS a week before the Paris to
Cairo flight took off.
EgyptAir Flight MS804 has gone missing over the
Mediterranean with 66 people on board amid reports of a merchant ship captain
having seen a 'flame in the sky'.
An Egyptian civil aviation authority spokesman has said the
plane, with 15 French passengers and one Briton on board - most likely crashed
into the sea.
The cause of the disaster remains unknown but it comes seven
months after a bomb blew up a Russian airliner over the Sinai
desert, killing all 224 people on board.
ISIS later revealed images of a soda can bomb which they
claimed to have used to bring the Metrojet plane down.
It has now emerged that Patrick Calvar, the head of France's
DGSI agency, told a parliamentary committee on national defence in Paris on May
10 that ISIS was planning 'a new form of attack'.
France was targeted twice last year - with the Charlie Hebdo
attack in January and the Paris attacks in November - and the French security
forces are on a state of high alert.
Mr Calvar was quoted in The Local as saying: 'We risk being confronted
with a new form of attack: a terrorist campaign characterised by leaving
explosive devices in places where big crowds gather, multiplying this type of
action to create a climate of panic.'
He made no mention of attacks on aircraft but said he
believed France was 'the country most threatened' by ISIS, which is often known
as Daesh, and also warned that Al-Qaeda remained a threat and was champing at
the bit to 'restore its image' as a major player, especially in the Maghreb and
the Arabian peninsula.
Mr Calvar said while last November's attacks in Paris that
killed 130 people were conducted by suicide bombers and jihadists armed with
Kalashnikovs, a new form of attack was possible.
It may be several weeks or even months before it is known what brought down
Flight MS804 but Mr Calvar's comments will increase fears of spectators with
less than a month to go before the start of the Euro 2016 football tournament
in France.
Mr Calvar said: 'We know that Daesh is planning new attacks
using fighters in the area, taking routes which facilitate access to our
territory and that France is clearly targeted.'
He said ISIS had suffered military setbacks in Syria and
Iraq and wanted to take revenge on members of the coalition, including France,
which were behind the air strikes on ISIS targets.
Mr Calvar said while last November's attacks in Paris that
killed 130 people were conducted by suicide bombers and jihadists armed with
Kalashnikovs, a new form of attack was possible.
