Cops seek clues after Chechnya-born knifeman’s rampage in Paris

INVESTIGATORS were yesterday probing the background of a 20year-old Frenchman born in Chechnya who killed one man and wounded four other people during a stabbing spree in central Paris, for which the Islamic State group claimed responsibility.

The Saturday-night attack in a lively area of theatres and restaurants near the city’s historic opera house was the latest in a series of apparent Islamist strikes in France that have killed about 245 people since 2015.

Panic broke out on the busy Rue Monsigny with people fleeing into bars and restaurants as the man walked along stabbing people, yelling “Allahu akbar” (God is greatest) before police shot him dead.

Police had identified the assailant as Khamzat A, who grew up with his family in Strasbourg, eastern France, a source close to the inquiry said. The city is home to a large community of refugees from the Muslim Russian republic of Chechnya.

He had become a French citizen in 2010 after his mother was naturalised, government spokesman Benjamin Griveaux told French television.

His parents were taken into custody for questioning in Paris.

Although Khamzat had no criminal record, he had been on both of France’s main watch-lists for suspected radicals – the so-called “S file” as well as a more targeted File for the Prevention of Terrorist Radicalisation (FSPRT) – since 2016.

Hundreds of Chechens have joined Islamic militant groups in the Middle East, North Africa and elsewhere in recent years.

The Islamic State group said one of its “soldiers” had carried out the Paris attack, according to the SITE monitoring organisation, but provided no evidence to back the claim.

Witnesses described dramatic scenes as the knifeman struck.

A 29-year-old man was killed in the attack, while a Luxembourg man aged 34 and a woman of 54 were seriously wounded.

A 26-year-old woman and a man of 31 were slightly wounded.

French President Emmanuel Macron tweeted: “France has once again paid the price in blood, but will not give an inch to the enemies of freedom.”

France has suffered a series of major Islamist attacks including the massacre at the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo, the November 2015 attacks that killed 130 in Paris, and the 2016 Bastille Day truck attack in Nice that killed more than 80.

Saturday’s attack is the latest of numerous suspected terrorist acts linked to the troubled Russian region.

Chechen warlord Akhmed Chatayev, who was killed last year, was believed to be behind an attack in 2016 at Istanbul’s Ataturk airport in which 45 people died.

Over the past 20 years, Russia has fought two fierce wars with separatists in Chechnya, leading to the radicalisation of the territory.

“The priority target for Chechens is not Westerners.

“[The Paris attack] is something of a turning point because up to now, Chechen propaganda has been focused on ‘kill all the Russians’ rather than ‘kill Westerners’,” French academic and Islamist expert Mathieu Guider said. – AFP