This period was called “black September” and ended definitively with the arrest of Fouad Ali Saleh on March 21, 1987 by police officers from the Directorate of Territorial Surveillance (DST) and the neutralization of his network.

Judge Alain Marsaud underlined in his memoir entitled Avant de tout voix: “It is now obvious that Abdallah was partly condemned for what he had not done”.

[1] At 5:28 PM on 17 September, a black-painted BMW of unknown model drove up rue de Rennes, a busy street lined with stores.

[3][1] The identity of the men who were in the BMW that dropped the package was unknown until several days after the attack, when several witnesses pointed out Emile Abdallah to authorities during a line-up.

Authorities had come to the conclusion that an estimated 30 terrorists were involved in the bombing, many of which were either associated with the Lebanese Armed Revolutionary Factions or the French sector of Hezbollah.