IS claims Paris terror attack
A gunman has opened fire on police on Paris’ iconic Champs-Elysees boulevard, killing one officer and wounding three people.
A GUNMAN has opened fire on police on Paris’ iconic Champs-Elysees boulevard, killing one officer and wounding three people before police shot and killed him.
The Islamic State group quickly claimed responsibility for the attack on Thursday night, just three days before a tense presidential election.
Security has been a dominant theme in the campaign, and the violence on the spark- ling avenue threatened to weigh on voters’ decisions.
Candidates cancelled or rescheduled final campaign events ahead of tomorrow’s first-round vote.
Investigators searched a home early yesterday in an eastern suburb of Paris believed linked to the attack.
A police document identified the address searched in the town of Chelles as the family home of Karim Cheurfi, a 39-year-old with a criminal record.
Police tape surrounded the quiet, middle-class neighbourhood and worried neighbours expressed surprise.
Archived reports by French newspaper Le Parisien said Cheurfi was convicted of attacking a police officer in 2001.
Authorities were trying to determine whether “one or more people” might have helped the attacker, Interior Ministry spokesman PierreHenry Brandet said.
One police officer was killed and two seriously wounded when the attacker emerged from a car and used an automatic weapon to shoot at officers outside a Marks & Spencer’s department store at the centre of the Champs-Elysees, anti-terrorism prosecutor Francois Molins said.
A female foreign tourist was also wounded.
Islamic State’s claim of responsibility just a few hours after the attack came unusually swiftly for the extremist group.
In a statement from its Amaq news agency, the group gave a pseudonym for the shooter, Abu Yusuf al-Beljiki, indicating he was Belgian or had lived in Belgium.
Belgian authorities said they had no information about the suspect.