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.

source: news.abs-cbn.com

2 dead in Paris knife attack, including knifeman

PARIS - A knifeman shouting "Allahu akbar" was shot dead by police in central Paris late Saturday after he killed one person and injured four, prompting a terror probe.

The attack took place near the city's main opera house in an area full of bars, restaurants and theatres which were brimming on a weekend night.

French President Emmanuel Macron said: "France once again pays the price of blood."

Prosecutors cited witnesses as saying the man shouted "Allahu akbar" (God is greatest) as he went on the rampage, and added that a terror investigation had been launched. 

The Islamic State group claimed responsibility, according to the SITE monitoring group.

"The executor of the stabbing operation in the city of Paris is a soldier of the Islamic State and the operation was carried out in response to the calls to target the coalition states," a "security source" told IS's official Amaq news agency, according to SITE.

The man attacked five people with a knife, one of whom died, police said. Two were in serious condition and all the victims are in hospital. 

Interior Minister Gerard Collomb hailed in a tweet the "sang-froid and reaction of the police who neutralised the attacker."

A large area was cordoned off where police, fire and rescue vehicles converged. 

Shocked tourists and residents looked on from behind the security perimeter.

"I was on the cafe terrace, I heard three, four shots, it happened very fast," said 47-year-old Gloria.

"Then the bartenders told us to come inside very quickly. Then I went out to see what was going on, and then I saw a man on the ground," she added.

France has suffered a series of major Islamist attacks over the past three years, including the massacre at the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo, the November 2015 attacks that killed 130 in Paris, and the 2016 Bastille Day truck attack in Nice.

A state of emergency put in place just after the 2015 Paris attacks was lifted in October when Macron's centrist government passed a new law boosting the powers of security forces.

Thousands of French troops remain on the streets under an anti-terror operation known as Sentinelle, patrolling transport hubs, tourist hotspots and other sensitive sites.

source: news.abs-cbn.com