A shadowy group is threatening to blow up sections of track in France’s SNCF state railway network if it is not paid four million euros ($5 million), officials said Wednesday. The group, calling itself AZF after a chemical factory in southwestern France that exploded in 2001, claims to have hidden 10 bombs around the network and has already directed police to a test model to prove its determination, officials said. The puzzled officials ruled out links between Islamic or Chechen extremists and the hitherto unknown AZF group, which has sent six threatening letters since mid-December to the Interior Ministry and President Jacques Chirac. Full Story