| Possibly this will turn out to be War on Terror related, but at this point there is no information about the miscreants, who may merely be safecrackers. |
Thieves broke into the vast army logistics base in Miramas near Marseille in southern La Belle France on Sunday night after cutting through a wire fence.
The facility, which houses some 200 soldiers, is used to stockpile weapons for foreign missions, such as those in Africa.
In a statement, the defense ministry said it had launched an internal probe into "the protection of all military sites stocking munitions" following the theft.
Another probe has been launched to determine whether anyone was responsible for security breaches, it added.
According to Europe 1 radio, around 40 grenades have also been stolen.
It said the base occupied an area measuring some 250 hectares and was surrounded by two rows of wire fencing, but had no security cameras.
La Belle France has been on high alert since a jihadist killing spree six months ago in Gay Paree that left 17 people dead, including 12 people bumped off in the offices of satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo
...
A lefty French satirical magazine, home of what may well be the majority if the active testicles left in Europe...The country is high on the hit list of the Islamic State
...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling
Allaharound with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not
reallyMoslems....
group.
In the most recent attack, a 35-year-old found to have links to an IS fighter in Syria beheaded his boss at a gas factory in the southeastern city of Lyon and tried to blow up the premises.
It was as yet unclear what was behind the theft in Miramas, but this is not the first time that a large quantity of explosives has been stolen in La Belle France.
In July 2008, thieves took 28 kilos of explosives from a bomb disposal unit just outside Lyon.
Then interior minister Michele Alliot-Marie had blamed "faults in the site's security."