AZF is a

terrorist Terrorism, in its broadest sense, is the use of criminal violence to provoke a state of terror or fear, mostly with the intention to achieve political or religious aims. The term is used in this regard primarily to refer to intentional violen ...

group based in France. The first record of the group was in Spring 2004. The group is believed to have taken its name from the

explosion An explosion is a rapid expansion in volume associated with an extreme outward release of energy, usually with the generation of high temperatures and release of high-pressure gases. Supersonic explosions created by high explosives are known ...

of the AZF chemical factory in Toulouse in 2001.

History

The group attempted to extort money from the French government by threatening to place explosives along the nation's

rail line Rail terminology is a form of technical terminology. The difference between the American term ''railroad'' and the international term ''railway'' (used by the International Union of Railways and English-speaking countries outside the United Sta ...

s. The French government tried to pay them twice, but the first time the government helicopter was unable to find the transfer point and on the second occasion could not take off because of fog. The French government placed ads in the newspaper ''

Libération ''Libération'' (), popularly known as ''Libé'' (), is a daily newspaper in France, founded in Paris by Jean-Paul Sartre and Serge July in 1973 in the wake of the protest movements of May 1968. Initially positioned on the far-left of France's ...

'' to contact the terrorists. They led French railway workers to a bomb, allowing it to be neutralized. A week or so later another bomb was found on the

TGV The TGV (french: Train à Grande Vitesse, "high-speed train"; previously french: TurboTrain à Grande Vitesse, label=none) is France's intercity high-speed rail service, operated by SNCF. SNCF worked on a high-speed rail network from 1966 to 19 ...

train tracks, but it was not armed and was different from the previous one. It is unsure if this was the work of AZF. In March 2004, a letter stated that they were temporarily stopping their operations due to logistical problems. It is still unclear whether this letter was from the real AZF. 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 bombings in

Madrid Madrid ( , ) is the capital and most populous city of Spain. The city has almost 3.4 million inhabitants and a metropolitan area population of approximately 6.7 million. It is the second-largest city in the European Union (EU), and ...

on 11 March 2004.

References

Extortionists Paramilitary organizations based in France {{paramilitary-org-stub