France on edge after market shooting spree
Three people died and 12 were wounded when a man flagged as a possible extremist sprayed gunfire near the French city of Strasbourg’s famous Christmas market yesterday, sparking a search for the suspect as officials put the country on increased alert for terror attacks.
French prosecutors said a terrorism investigation had been opened, though authorities did not say what they thought the gunman’s motive was.
Strasbourg is home to the European Parliament, one of several places locked down after the shooting and those inside prevented from leaving.
The alleged assailant got inside a security zone around the venue and opened fire from there, Mayor Roland Ries said.
Two years ago, a Tunisian man drove a hijacked truck into a busy Berlin Christmas market in an attack that killed 12 people.
Authorities said they had identified the suspect in yesterday’s bloodshed, and he had a criminal record. The prefect of the Strasbourg region said the alleged shooter also was on a watch list of potentially radicalised individuals. No other details about him were disclosed.
Gendarmes went to the suspect’s home to arrest him before the attack, but he wasn’t there, Stephane Morisse of police union FGP said. They found explosive materials during a search.
France previously endured several high-profile extremist attacks, including coordinated attacks at multiple Paris locations that killed 130 people and wounded hundreds in November 2015. A 2016 truck attack in Nice killed dozens.
The attack revived memories of a terror plot targeting Strasbourg’s Christmas market. Ten suspected Islamist militants were convicted and sentenced to prison in December 2004 for their role in a plot to blow up the market on New Year’s Eve 1999. – AP