CLOSE ONE IN FRANCE – AT 1:46 P.M. ET:   France says that it prevented a terrorist chemical attack.  From AP:

Police in France have foiled a suspected terror attack and arrested two brothers of Egyptian origin, French Interior Minister Gerard Collomb said on Friday.

“There were two young people of Egyptian origin who were preparing to commit an attack, with either explosives or ricin, this very powerful poison,” the minister said on BFMTV.

“They had tutorials that showed how to make ricin-based poisons,” Collomb said, adding that they had communicated via the Telecom encrypted messaging app.

The revelation came after a 29-year-old man was killed and five other people injured in a deadly knife attack in Paris last Saturday night.

Collomb did not indicate when they were arrested, but a source close to the inquiry said they were detained in the northern 18th Arrondissement of Paris on May 11, the day before Khamzat Azimov carried out his knife rampage.

COMMENT:  The working assumption here has to be that these two were either members of, or followers of, some very bad group.  We have to wonder how they got "tutorials" telling them how to make chemical weapons.

France has been a regular target of Mideast terror for many years, despite having a history of appeasing Muslim interests.  Shows that appeasement never works.

Obviously, we have no evidence of any link between the French arrests and the shootings today in Texas.  However, some of the explosive devices found near the Texas shootings were pressure-cooker bombs, or simulated bombs.  Pressure cooker devices were used in the Boston Marathon bombings. 

Not a good day.

May 18, 2018