Two killed in knife attack in France
• Terror returned to France Sunday as a man shouting “Allahu akbar!” — God is greatest — killed two women in a frenzied knife attack at Marseille’s main railway station before being shot dead.
The victims were aged 17 and 20, police said. The attacker, reportedly aged about 20, was armed with two butcher’s knives. He was known to the authorities for theft, drug dealing and other crimes, but had not been flagged as a potential terrorist.
Dominique, a witness who declined to give her last name, described how he grabbed one of the women from behind and slit her throat. “She couldn’t have seen a thing,” she told CNews television. “She was lying in a pool of blood as I ran away. I heard two shots fired.”
The Paris prosecutor’s office, which oversees all terror cases in France, said it had opened a counterterrorism investigation of the Marseille attack. It did not provide further details, including a possible motive.
Security services reviewed CCTV footage that showed the man sitting on a bench shortly before he struck. He began to flee after the first attack, but returned to attack a second victim before running at soldiers who were rushing to the scene. They shot him twice just outside the station.
President Emmanuel Macron said he was “deeply outraged by this barbaric act.” Interior Minister Gérard Collomb described it as “an odious act.” He told journalists outside the station: “This could be of a terrorist nature, but we cannot confirm it fully at this stage.”
Collomb declined to provide any details about the suspect or identify the victims. He said the assailant’s “strange” behaviour of attacking, running away and then returning to strike again was “a point of inquiry.” However, Collomb confirmed several witnesses heard the attacker shouting “God is greatest” in Arabic.
Marseille Mayor Jean-Claude Gaudin said: “I think it was a terrorist attack and the individual who was killed seems to have had several identities.” Police who checked the man’s fingerprints found several aliases on file.
Samia Ghali, a local senator, urged the public to be vigilant. “At any time, in any place, the threat may return,” he warned. More than 200 police evacuated and sealed off Saint-Charles station and trains serving the city were suspended.
Macron congratulated the soldiers who “reacted with calmness and efficiency” and said he shared the pain of the victims’ families and friends.
France remains under a state of emergency declared after the Paris attacks in November 2015. The government extended Opération Sentinelle earlier this month and the French parliament is to vote on a bill next week that would make permanent many of the powers given to police to detain suspects and carry out surveillance.