Terrorist Attack on Air Products Plant in France

News reports (here, here and here) are just now starting to come in about a possible terrorist attack on an Air Products facility in Saint-Quentin-Fallavier, France. These are early reports and there are conflicting detail, as we are used to seeing in early press reports.

What does seem to be common to the reports at this point; two men decapitated a man and then drove into the Air Products facility. Most of the reports say that the car drove into gas cylinders on the site, setting off explosions. One report says that ‘gas bombs’ were thrown from the car. One report says that the head of the man was placed on the facility fence.

An ‘Islamist flag’ has reportedly been seen on site, leading most reports to conjecture that this is a radical-jihadist terrorist attack. Reportedly one of the men is in custody and the other may be at large.

The French Government has reportedly stepped up security at all sensitive sites.

Commentary

The fact that this was an attack on an American company has not yet been determined to be of significance. I suspect that DHS will be notifying CFATS facilities to increase their security as a precaution. All covered facilities are supposed to have provisions in their security plan to put in place additional measures when there is an increased threat of potential attack.

I would bet that Air Products has increased the security at their facilities in the US without waiting for word from ISCD.

There has been no change, yet, to the National Terrorism Advisory System status.