Paris assailant had vowed IS allegiance
POLICE have scoured the background of a Chechnyaborn Frenchman who killed a man in a knife attack in Paris, questioning the parents and a friend of the 21-year old, who had been flagged previously as a potential security risk.
The assailant had shouted “Allahu akbar” (God is greatest) as he began his stabbing rampage on Saturday. He fatally knifed a 29-year-old man and wounded four others, among them a Chinese and a Luxembourg citizen, before police shot him dead.
A judicial source named the attacker as Khamzat A, without giving his full name, which French media said was Azimov.
The attack took place in the bustling Opera district, known for its many restaurants, cafes and the Palais Garnier opera.
It was the latest in a succession of attacks in France since January 2015 in which more than 240 people have been killed.
Since 2016 the attacker had been on a counter-terrorism watchlist of suspected radicals who may be a threat to national security, government spokesman Benjamin Griveaux said.
The stabbing again exposed the difficulty European intelligence services face keeping track of suspected extremists and countering the threat posed by homegrown militants and foreign jihadists.
Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attack, but provided no proof.
In a video that the SITE intelligence monitoring group said was posted by Islamic State’s Amaq news agency, a young man described as the attacker pledged allegiance to Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.
Judicial sources said the assailant’s parents and a friend of his were being questioned. The friend, arrested in the eastern city of Strasbourg, was born in 1997.