Gunman killed in attack at French airport
Assailant fatally shot after taking rifle from soldier patrolling facility
PARIS — A man who attacked a soldier at Orly Airport outside Paris on Saturday was fatally shot in what the Paris prosecutor’s office is treating as a possible act of terrorism.
The attack occurred shortly after the man shot at a police officer during a routine traffic stop in a Paris suburb, the French interior minister said.
The shooting at Orly prompted a partial evacuation of the airport, the diversion of all flights and a security sweep to determine whether the assailant had left any explosives at the airport’s two terminals, officials said. Incoming flights were diverted to nearby Charles de Gaulle Airport.
The chain of events started when the man was stopped by police in a routine identity check at 6:50 a.m. in the Paris suburb of Garges-lès-Gonesse, Bruno Le Roux, the interior minister, said. The man fired a pistol loaded with birdshot and fled. One police officer suffered minor injuries.
The assailant then carjacked a vehicle in Vitrysur-Seine, about 8 miles north of Orly Airport, and drove to the airport, where he attacked a female soldier who was part of a unit patrolling the airport, said Jean-Yves Le Drian, the defense minister. Two soldiers opened fire on the man as he attacked, killing him. Amid heated election
A spokeswoman for the Paris prosecutor’s office said Saturday morning that its anti-terrorism unit and the French Intelligence Service had opened an investigation into the events.
The spokeswoman for the prosecutor’s office said the suspect was 39 and had a long police record, including arrests for robbery and drug-related offenses. She said that police had taken both his brother and father into custody for questioning.
The Associated Press reported Paris prosecutor Francois Molins said the attacker held a pistol to the soldier’s head. Contrary to earlier reports by French officials, Molins says the attacker did wrench away her powerful military-grade assault rifle and wanted to use it to shoot people at the busy Paris airport.
Speaking Saturday night at a news conference, the prosecutor said a Quran was among the items later found on the body of the attacker, Ziyed Ben Belgacem.
The episode Saturday came amid a heated presidential election campaign in France, with the first round of voting just five weeks away, on April 23.
Any terrorist attack so close to the election, political analysts suggest, could be seen as an opportunity by the candidates of the far right, Marine Le Pen, and the center right, François Fillion, to berate the current Socialist government and by association Emmanuel Macron, the center-left candidate, who was previously the economy minister, for failing to protect the French people. Investigation ongoing
The unit attacked at the airport was part of Operation Sentinel, whose 7,000 soldiers patrol public areas, including high-profile locations like airports, large tourist attractions and train stations.
The French Interior Ministry confirmed that special operations police officers who also deal with terrorism were at the airport and asked people in the area to stay away from the security perimeter. Explosives experts were also on the scene and had completed their inspection by noon.
The Orly-West terminal reopened by 1 p.m., and flights resumed, the Paris Airport Authority said. Orly-South, where the attack took place, remained closed so that the prosecutor’s office could complete its investigation.