Suspect shot and arrested after French soldiers rammed by BMW
● Six troops hurt in attack as counter-terrorism probe begins
French police have shot and arrested a man suspected of ramming a BMW into soldiers in Paris, injuring six of them in what appeared to be a carefully timed ambush before speeding away, officials said.
The driver’s motive was unclear but officials said he deliberately aimed at the soldiers, and counterterrorism authorities started an investigation.
The attacker and soldiers were taken to hospital for treatment. It was the latest of several attacks targeting French security forces over the past year.
While others have targeted prominent sites such as the Eiffel Tower, yesterday’s attack hit the affluent suburb of Levallois-perret that is home to France’s main intelligence service, the DGSI, and its counter-terrorism service.
Interior minister Gerard Collomb said: “We know it was a deliberate act.”
Defence minister Florence Parly called it proof that extra security measures imposed in recent years are “more necessary than ever”.
The suspect was seen waiting in a BMW in a cul-de-sac near the Levallois city hall and a building used as a staging point for soldiers in France’s Sentinelle operation to protect prominent sites from attack, according to two police officials.
As a group of soldiers came out of the building to board vehicles for a new shift, the car sped up and rammed into them, hurling the troops against their van, according to one official.
Mr Collomb said the car first approached slowly then sped up about five metres from its target.
A nearby resident described an ear-piercing scream of pain, then soldiers chasing the fleeing car.
Authorities checked video surveillance of the area and police fanned out and stopped numerous cars as they searched for the attacker.
Then, on the A16 highway near the Channel port of Calais, police stopped what prime minister Edouard Philippe called the “principal suspect” in the attack.
Photographs of the arrest scene show emergency vehicles surrounding a black BMW with a damaged windscreen on a cordoned-off motorway.
Police opened fire during the arrest to subdue the man, and the suspect was injured along with a police officer hit by a stray bullet, according to officials.
The suspect’s condition was not known.
Three of the soldiers hit in the morning attack were slightly injured and three were more seriously hurt, but their lives were not in danger, according to the defence ministry.
Mrs Parly said she had received “reassuring” news about their condition.
The soldiers were from the 35th infantry regiment and served in Operation Sentinelle, created to guard prominent French sites after a string of deadly Islamic extremist attacks in 2015.
One witness to the car attack, Nadia Leprohon, was startled by a crash outside her building and rushed outside to see two soldiers lying on the ground.
Other soldiers were running after a speeding car, shouting: “After him. Follow that car”.
She said: “I’ll never forget that scream – a scream of pain and distress.”
Another resident, Jeanclaude Veillant, said he saw two uniformed soldiers lying on the ground when he came down to the entrance of his 13-storey building.
“It was horrible,” he said, adding that both soldiers appeared to be in bad shape and one of them was unconscious.
The street is normally guarded by posts that are removed when vehicles move in and out, so the attacker must have known exactly when to strike, Mr Veillant said.