Terror fear returns to Paris
paris — French police shot and arrested a suspect in a dramatic motorway chase on Wednesday after a car smashed into soldiers outside a barracks in a Paris suburb, injuring six.
The suspected terror attack is the latest in a string of assaults that have hit France since January 2015, claiming more than 230 lives.
The servicemen were hit by a BMW which drove down a quiet street in the upmarket western Paris suburb of Levallois-Perret at around 8am.
It accelerated as it neared the troops, rammed into them and then sped away.
“I heard a huge crash which I thought was the sound of scaffolding being put up,” said Thierry Chappe, a resident in a building opposite the crime scene.
Police later gave chase to the vehicle on a motorway north of Paris, and shot and wounded the suspect, a man aged in his late 30s who was also arrested, sources involved in the manhunt said. Interior Minister Gerard Collomb described the act as “deliberate” and carried out by a “man on his own”. He spoke after visiting three of the injured soldiers along with Defence Minister Florence Parly. All six were taken to hospital, but none has life-threatening injuries.
paris — A car rammed into a group of soldiers in a Parisian suburb on Wednesday, injuring six before speeding off in what officials identified as a suspected terrorist attack.
The vehicle, a BMW, was parked in an alley before it accelerated into the soldiers as they left their barracks to go on patrol, said Patrick Balkany, mayor of Levallois-Perret.
“The vehicle did not stop. It hurtled at them ... it accelerated rapidly,” he told broadcaster BFM TV.
Armed Forces Minister Florence Parly said the driver was on the run and being sought, and an investigation was under way to determine “the motives and circumstances” for what she called a “cowardly act”.
A justice ministry official said counter-terrorism investigators had been assigned to the case.
The incident follows a string of militant-inspired attacks on soldiers and police, who have been deployed in large numbers nationwide after calls by terrorist group Daesh for attacks on France and other countries bombing its strongholds in Syria and Iraq.
The soldiers hit on Wednesday were rushed to hospital and police said two of the six were seriously injured.
Balkany said that what he called a “disgusting” act of aggression was “without any doubt” premeditated.
Jean-Claude Veillant, resident of an apartment building directly above the scene, witnessed part of the attack.
“I heard a loud noise, the sound of scraping metal. Shortly after, I saw one of the badly wounded lying in front of the Vigipirate (army patrol) vehicle and another one behind it receiving treatment,” he told reporters.
Meanwhile, French security forces have shot and arrested a man suspected of being behind an attack on soldiers in a Paris suburb on Wednesday, security sources said.
The man, aged in his late 30s, was intercepted on a motorway north of the French capital in the vehicle used to drive into the soldiers, the sources said, asking not to be named because they were not authorised to speak. One source close to the case said the man had been stopped at the wheel of a BMW driving towards the northern port of Calais.
A second legal source added: “The arrested individual, born in 1980, is suspected to be the culprit” of the assault in the Levallois-Perret area of Paris at around 8:00am.
France remains on maximum alert following a string of attacks over the past two years in which militants or militant-inspired attackers have killed more than 230 people. Most were civilians killed in Paris in early and late 2015 as well as in the southern seaside city of Nice in mid-2016, Since then a string of attacks have primarily targeted police and soldiers. —