Three killed in Nice church attack
France rasies security alert to maximum level after assault by extremist
NICE, FRANCE— A young Tunisian man armed with a knife and carrying a copy of the Qur’an attacked worshippers in a French church and killed three Thursday, prompting the government to raise its security alert to the maximum level hours before a nationwide coronavirus lockdown.
The attack in Mediterranean city of Nice was the third in less than two months that French authorities have attributed to Muslim extremists, including the beheading of a teacher who had shown caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad in class after the images were re-published by a satirical newspaper targeted in a 2015 attack.
Thursday’s attacker was seriously wounded by police and hospitalized in life-threatening condition after the killings at the Notre Dame Basilica.
President Emmanuel Macron said he would immediately increase the number of soldiers deployed to protect schools and religious sites from around 3,000 to 7,000.
France’s anti-terrorism prosecutor said the suspect is a Tunisian born in 1999 who reached the Italian island of Lanpedusa, a key landing point for migrants crossing in boats from North Africa, on Sept. 20 and travelled to Paris on Oct. 9. Prosecutor Jean-Francois Ricard did not specify when he arrived in Nice. The prosecutor said the attacker was not on the radar of intelligence agencies as a potential threat.
Video cameras recorded the man entering the Nice train station at 6:47 a.m., where he changed his shoes and turned his coat inside out before heading for the church, 400 metres away, just before 8:30 a.m.
Ricard said the attacker was carrying a copy of Islam’s holy book and two telephones. A knife with a17-centimetre blade used in the attack was found near him along with a bag containing another two knives that were not used in the attack.
Witnesses heard the man crying ”Allahu Akbar” as he advanced on police. Police initially used an electric gun then fired their service revolvers. Ricard said 14 bullet casings were found on the ground.
Ricard detailed a gruesome scene inside the church where two of the victims died. A 60year-old woman suffered “a very deep throat slitting, like a decapitation,” he said, and a 55year-old man also suffered deep, fatal throat cuts. The third victim, a 44-year-old woman, managed to flee the church alive, but died at a nearby restaurant.
The three were killed “only because they were in the church at that moment,” Ricard told reporters. He said investigators are looking for potential complicity in the “complex” probe.
The attack in Nice came amid a fierce debate in France and beyond over the re-publication of the Muhammad caricatures by satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo.
The French consulate in the Saudi city of Jiddah was also targeted Thursday, a man claiming allegiance to an antiimmigrant group was shot and killed by police in the southern French city of Avignon, and scattered confrontations were reported elsewhere, but it is unclear whether they were linked to the attack in Nice.
Earlier, the lower house of parliament suspended a debate on France’s new virus restrictions and held a moment of silence for the victims. Prime Minister Jean Castex rushed from the hall to a crisis centre overseeing the aftermath of the Nice attack and later returned to announce the alert level increase. Macron left for Nice almost immediately.
“Very clearly, it is France which is under attack,” Macron said as he stood before the church. He added that all of France offered its support to Catholics “so that their religion can be exercised freely in our country. So that every religion can be practised.”
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau condemned the attack.
“They were heinous, criminal acts, unjustifiable by any circumstance and an affront to all of our values,” Trudeau said Thursday at a news conference after a virtual meeting with European Union leaders. “The criminals, the terrorists, the cold-blooded murderers who perpetrated these attacks do not represent Islam.
“They do not get to define Muslims in France, in Canada or anywhere around the world,” he added.
“Very clearly, it is France which is under attack,” French President Emmanuel Macron said on Thursday.