Police widen probe into abettors of Paris knife attacker

PARIS: French investigators will widen their probe to include possible help provided to the Chechen-born 20-year-old whose stabbing spree in central Paris, claimed by the Islamic State (IS) group, left one person dead and four seriously wounded.

The man, identified as naturalised Frenchman Khamzat Azimov (pic), carried out the attack on Saturday night in a lively area of theatres and restaurants near the city’s historic opera house.

The knifeman, whose rampage followed a series of terrorist assaults in France that have killed 246 people since 2015, was shot dead by police after an officer failed to subdue him with a Taser.

A source close to the inquiry said Azimov grew up with his family in Strasbourg, eastern France, which has a large community of Chechen refugees.

His parents, now living in Paris, have been taken into custody as well as a friend in Strasbourg described as the “individual closest” to Azimov, according to a source close to the investigation.

Amaq, the IS propaganda agency, released a video on Sunday in which it claimed responsibility for the attack, with footage which it claims shows Azimov pledging allegiance to the terrorist group.

IS has long urged followers to seek “martyrdom” by targeting American or Europeans by any available means, and allegiance videos help the group bolster its claims of responsibility.

Although Azimov had no criminal record, he had been on both of France’s main watchlists for suspected radicals – the so-called “S file” and a more targeted File for the Prevention of Terrorist Radicalisation (FSPRT), which focuses on people judged to be terror threats – since 2016.

One source said he had been questioned last year “because he knew a man who was in contact with a person who had gone to Syria”.

Hundreds of fighters from Chechnya have joined Islamic militant groups in recent years, following two bloody separatist wars against Russian-backed authorities in the 1990s and 2000s.

Azimov became a French citizen in 2010 after his mother was naturalised, government spokesman Benjamin Griveaux told French TV.

Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov said on the Telegram messenging app that Azimov had obtained a Russian passport when he was 14, before obtaining French nationality. —