Knife attacker kills man in Paris suburb before he is shot dead

PARIS—A knife-wielding man ran amok Friday in a park south of Paris, killing a man walking with his wife and wounding 2 other people before being shot dead by police, officials said.

The Paris police department said the man, identified as 22-year-old Nathan C., attacked "several people" around lunchtime in the suburb of Villejuif.

Some managed to evade him but the man claimed at least one life -- that of a 56-year-old Villejuif resident, according to the town's mayor Franck Le Bohellec.

The victim "was walking with his wife when the attacker approached; he wanted to protect his wife" and was stabbed, the mayor explained.

According to a source close to the inquiry, another man was seriously wounded and a woman sustained light injuries.

The assailant then fled to the neighboring suburb of Hay-les-Roses, where he was shot dead by police.

A picture sent to AFP showed a man in a long black garment lying on his back at an intersection.

"We heard screams, then we heard 3 shots," said Rouane Yazid, 40, the owner of a garage nearby.

"I went outside to see. Then there were 5 or 6 more shots and then sirens. We barricaded ourselves in the garage," he told AFP.

HIGH ALERT

Several sources said Nathan C. suffered from "psychological problems."

He was not being tracked as a religious zealot, although "elements linked to religion" that "suggested he had converted to Islam," were found among his personal effects, the local prosecutor's office said.

The police have opened an investigation of murder and attempted murder.

The attack came just 4 days before France marks the fifth anniversary of the killing of 12 people at satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo in Paris by 2 brothers vowing allegiance to Al-Qaeda.

President Emmanuel Macron expressed support for the victims and said in a statement: "We continue to fight determinedly against senseless violence."

France remains on high alert after being hit by a string of attacks by jihadist extremists since 2015, with more than 250 people killed in total.

The day after the Charlie Hebdo attack, a man linked to the Islamic State (IS) group shot and killed a policewoman in a southern Paris suburb before taking hostages at a Jewish supermarket the following day, killing 4 more people.

Police eventually killed all 3 attackers but it was the beginning of the wave of strikes on French territory.

The deadliest came in November 2013, when 130 people died in bombings and shootings at Paris's Bataclan concert hall, several bars and restaurants, and the Stade de France sports stadium.

Interior ministry figures indicate that 60 attacks have been thwarted since 2013, the latest in September.

France's anti-terror prosecutor Jean-Francois Ricard was at the scene of Friday's attack, but the investigation remained initially under the authority of the Creteil prosecutor's office.

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7 wounded including 2 British tourists in Paris knife attack

PARIS - Seven people including 2 British tourists were wounded Sunday in Paris after they were attacked by a man armed with a knife and an iron bar, according to police and other sources.

A source close to the inquiry said the suspect, believed to be an Afghan national, has been arrested.

"Nothing at this stage shows signs of a terrorist nature in these assaults," the source said, adding that the attacker had targeted "strangers in the street".

Of the seven wounded, four are in a critical condition, police said.

The incident took place just after 11:00 p.m. on the banks of a canal in the northeast of the capital.

A security guard at one of 2 cinemas on either side of the Bassin de la Villette, part of the Canal de l'Ourcq, said he saw a man who had already assaulted people being chased by two other men who tried to stop him.

"He had an iron bar in his hand which he threw at the men chasing him, then he took out a knife," he told AFP.

Another eyewitness, 28-year-old Youssef Najah, said he was walking along the canal near a bowling green when he saw a man running and holding a knife about 25-30 cm (10-11 inches) long.

"There were around 20 people chasing him. They started throwing Petanque balls at him," Najah said, referring to the sport popular in France also known as boules.

"Around 4 or 5 balls hit him in the head, but they weren't able to stop him," he added.

According to the same witness, the attacker then dived into an alleyway, where the man "tried to hide behind two British tourists. We said to them: 'Watch out, he has a knife". But they didn't react".

The pair were then attacked, he said.

HIGH ALERT

A police investigation has been launched for attempted murder, according to a judicial source.

It is the latest of several knife attacks France has seen in recent months, with terrorism being ruled out in most cases.

On August 23, a man stabbed his mother and sister to death and seriously injured another person in a town near Paris before being shot dead by police.

The motive for the violence remained unclear despite a claim by the Islamic State (IS) group that it was an attack by one of its fighters responding to the terror organisation's propaganda.

Authorities said the 36-year-old had serious mental health problems and had been on a terror watch list since 2016.

That attack came days after an Afghan asylum-seeker was arrested in town of Perigueux for a drunken rampage with a knife in which four people were wounded, one seriously.

Police said investigators had "very quickly" dismissed a terrorist motive after the August 13 incident.

And on June 17, 2 people were hurt in another southern town when a woman shouting "Allahu akbar" (God is greatest) attacked them in a supermarket with a boxcutter knife.

France has been on high alert following a string of jihadist attacks in recent years, often by people who have become radicalized or claim to have acted in the name of the IS group.

More than 240 people have been killed by Islamic extremists since a massacre at the Charlie Hebdo satirical magazine in Paris in January 2015.

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2 dead, 8 wounded in knife attack in Finland

TURKU, Finland - A man with a knife killed two people and wounded eight others in a stabbing rampage in a market square in the Finnish city of Turku on Friday, police said.

Police shot the suspected attacker in the leg and arrested him. They said they had yet to establish the identity of the man who was of foreign origin, or his motive.

A witness told Reuters she had seen a man stabbing a woman and other people sobbing at what they had seen after running away in terror.

Police warned people to stay away from the city and reinforced security nationwide, with increased patrols and more surveillance, in case more people were involved. People were allowed to return to the city center a few hours later.

"At this stage, there is only one suspect and we are investigating whether there are more people involved ... but it looks likely (he was alone)," Markus Laine from the National Bureau of Investigation said.

"For now we do not investigate this (as a terrorist attack) but the possibility has not been ruled out," he told a news conference.

Police said they would hold the next news conference in Turku on Saturday at 1100 GMT.

People laid candles and flowers at the scene of the attack in the evening.

Laura Laine, who saw the stabbing from a nearby outdoor cafe, also returned to the square.

"First thing we heard was a young woman, screaming like crazy. I thought it's just kids having fun ... but then people started to move around and I saw a man with a knife in his hand, stabbing a woman," she told Reuters.

"Then a person ran towards us shouting 'he has a knife', and everybody from the terrace ran inside."

"Next, a woman came in to the cafe. She was crying hysterically, down on her knees, saying someone's neck has been slashed open."

The eight wounded were taken to hospital, police said.

"The act is utterly deplorable and an exceptionally serious violent offence in the Finnish context – it is deeply shocking for us all," Prime Minister Juha Sipila said in a statement after holding a conference call with his government.

Finland is usually peaceful but the Security Intelligence Service raised the terrorism threat level in June to elevated from low, saying it had become aware of terrorism-related plans in Finland.

The government has grown more concerned about attacks, partly since an Uzbek man killed four people in neighbouring Sweden in April by driving a hijacked truck into crowd in central Stockholm.

On Thursday, a suspected Islamist militant drove a van into crowds in Barcelona, Spain, killing 13 people and wounding scores of others.

European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said: "It is with great concern that I have learnt of the violent attacks in Turku, Finland. While details are still emerging, we strongly condemn this unprovoked attack which comes only 24 hours after the horror that unfolded in Spain."

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Ohio State attacker may have self-radicalized, officials say

WASHINGTON/COLUMBUS, OHIO - A Somali immigrant who injured 11 people at Ohio State University in a vehicle and stabbing attack before he was shot dead may have followed the same path to self-radicalization as militants in a number of "lone wolf" attacks, U.S. officials said on Tuesday.

The Islamic State militant group claimed responsibility on Tuesday for the attack.

Abdul Razak Ali Artan, 20, was shot dead by a police officer on Monday moments after he plowed his car into a crowd of pedestrians and then leapt out and began stabbing people with a butcher knife.

Investigators were probing the background of Artan, a Muslim who was a lawful permanent resident of the United States and a student at Ohio State.

Police have given no motive for the attack on the Columbus campus.

So far, investigators have found no strong evidence linking Artan to other known militant individuals, cells or groups, said two federal law enforcement officials, who declined to be named because the probe is ongoing.

Artan's actions fit the pattern of lone-wolf militants who carried out other attacks in the United States, such as the gunman who shot to death 49 people at a nightclub in Orlando, Florida, in June, and the man who killed four U.S. Marines and a Navy sailor in a shooting in Chattanooga, Tennessee, last year, the officials said.

The gunmen in those two attacks were also Muslim and were killed by police.

A federal official who asked not to be identified said that while Islamic State has claimed responsibility in other attacks, investigators have seen no evidence so far that the militant group's role was anything more than inspirational.

ARTAN SPOKE OF "BOILING POINT"

Investigators were looking into a message posted on Facebook by Artan that contained inflammatory statements about being "sick and tired" of seeing Muslims killed and reaching a "boiling point," a law enforcement source said.

"Stop the killing of the Muslims in Burma," Artan said in the Facebook post.

Violence in Myanmar, which is also known as Burma, has sent Rohingya Muslims fleeing across the border to Bangladesh amid allegations of abuses by security forces.

All of Artan's Facebook postings have been removed from the social media website.

Artan on Facebook also called Anwar al-Awlaki, a U.S.-born radical cleric linked to al Qaeda's Yemen wing, "a hero." Awlaki was killed by a U.S. drone strike in 2011.

In its claim of responsibility for Monday's attack at Ohio State, the Islamic State news agency AMAQ posted a photo of Artan wearing a blue shirt and sitting with greenery in the background. It described him as a soldier of the group.

"Brother Abdul Razak Ali Artan, God accept him, implementer of the Ohio attack, a student in his third year in university," the caption read.

Artan, who was born in Somalia, arrived in the United States in 2014, said a federal official, who also asked not to be identified. Ohio State University Police Chief Craig Stone said Artan was 20 years old.

Investigators believe Artan may have lived for as long as seven years in Pakistan, said the federal official, who declined to be named because of the ongoing investigation. Somali refugees often spend some time in Pakistan before coming to the United States, another official said.

Investigators were trying to assemble a full picture of Artan's associates and recent activities, according to federal officials.

Two people remained hospitalized at Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center, a spokeswoman said on Tuesday. Two others were at Riverside Methodist Hospital, according to a spokesman. None of the victims have life-threatening injuries, officials said. Seven people have been released.

The attack rattled students at the state's flagship public university, which had been placed under a campuswide alert as people barricaded themselves in rooms and police with rifles searched for a possible second suspect.

Members of Columbus' Somali community have denounced the attack.

Ohio Governor John Kasich and other officials have praised Ohio State police for quickly reacting to the rampage.

(Additional reporting by Amy Tennery and David Ingram in New York and Ali Abdelatti in Cairo; Writing by Alex Dobuzinskis; Editing by Jeffrey Benkoe and Leslie Adler)

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One killed, five injured in London knife attack

LONDON - One woman was killed and five other people were injured by a man with a knife in central London in an attack which police said could be linked to terrorism.

Police said they had been called shortly before midnight after the man had injured several people in London's Russell Square. Police used a Taser gun while arresting the man.

"Terrorism is one possibility being explored at this stage," police said in a statement.

A woman was treated at the scene but was pronounced dead a short time later, police said.

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Attacker in Japan stabs, kills 19 in their sleep at disabled center

SAGAMIHARA, Japan - A knife-wielding man stabbed and killed 19 people as they slept at a facility for the disabled in a town near Tokyo early on Tuesday, a senior government official said, Japan's worst mass killing in decades.

At least 25 other residents of the facility were wounded in the attack.

"This is a very heart-wrenching and shocking incident in which many innocent people became victims," Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga told a scheduled news conference in Tokyo.

Police have arrested Satoshi Uematsu, 26, a former employee at the facility in Sagamihara town in Kanagawa Prefecture, about 25 miles (40 km) southwest of Tokyo, a Kanagawa official said. At least one media report said Uematsu had called for euthanasia of the severely disabled.

Uematsu had turned himself in, the Kanagawa prefecture official, identified only by his surname of Sakuma, told an earlier news conference carried on public broadcaster NHK.

Another 25 people were wounded, 20 of them seriously, Sakuma said.

Kyodo news agency said the dead ranged in age from 19 to 70 and included nine males and 10 females. Earlier media reports had said as many as 45 people had been wounded.

Staff called police at 2.30 a.m. local time (1730 GMT Monday) with reports of a man armed with a knife on the grounds of the Tsukui Yamayuri-En facility, media reported. The man wore a black T-shirt and trousers, reports said.

The 3-hectare (7.6 acre) facility, established by the local government and nestled on the wooded bank of the Sagami River, cares for people with a wide range of disabilities, NHK said, quoting an unidentified employee.

Residents of the small town of Sagamihara said the last murder in the area was 10 years ago.

A woman who said she used to work at the facility said many patients were profoundly disabled.

"They are truly innocent people. What did they do? This is shocking," she told Japanese television station TBS.

BAG OF KNIVES

Police had recovered a bag with several knives, at least one stained with blood, the Kanagawa prefecture official said.

Police said they were still investigating possible motives.

Asahi Shimbun reported that the suspect was quoted by police as saying: "I want to get rid of the disabled from this world." Other reports said he had held a grudge after being fired from his job at the facility.

Broadcaster NTV reported that the arrested man presented a letter to the speaker of the lower house of Japan's parliament in February calling for euthanasia of disabled people.

"My goal is a world in which, in cases where it is difficult for the severely disabled to live at home and be socially active, they can be euthanised with the consent of their guardians," it quoted the letter as saying.

At least 29 emergency squads responded to the attack, Kyodo reported, with those wounded taken to at least six hospitals in the western Tokyo area.

NHK reported that the facility is usually locked at night but the suspect broke into the building by smashing a window.

The facility's website said the centre had a maximum capacity of 160 people, including staff.

Such mass killings are extremely rare in Japan and typically involve stabbings. Japan has strict gun laws and possession of firearms by the public is rare.

Eight children were stabbed to death at their school in Osaka by a former janitor in 2001. Seven people died in 2008 when a man drove a truck into a crowd and began stabbing people in Tokyo's popular electronics and "anime" district of Akihabara.

A revision to Japan's Swords and Firearms Control Law was introduced in 2009 in the wake of that attack, banning the possession of double-edged knives and further tightening gun-ownership rules.

Members of a doomsday cult killed 12 people and made thousands ill in 1995 in simultaneous attacks with sarin nerve gas on five Tokyo rush-hour subway trains.

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