FRENCH HAD HIM ON THEIR RADAR
Paris knife slayer linked to ISIS in new video
The knife-wielding man behind the deadly rampage in Paris was identified Sunday as a known security threat to French authorities — as ISIS released a video purporting to show him swear allegiance to the terror group.
Khamzat Azimov — a 20-yearold French citizen born in the majority-Muslim Russian republic of Chechnya — had been on the French government’s radar since 2016, despite never having been arrested.
Azimov had been flagged as a possible security threat in a nationwide database that includes thousands of people with suspected links to radicalism, said French government spokesman Benjamin Griveaux.
The attacker had also caught the attention of the Paris anti-terrorism task force about a year ago after a friend’s wife — also on the list — traveled to Syria, the French newspaper Le Figaro reported, citing a source close to the investigation.
Those suspicions were con- firmed in horrifying fashion at around 9 p.m. Saturday when Azimov, shouting, “Allahu akbar,” fatally stabbed one man and wounded four others in the City of Light’s lively Opera district.
Cornered by cops and still armed, he yelled, “I’m going to kill you! I’m going to kill you!” before the police shot him dead.
ISIS has claimed Azimov as one of its “soldiers,” and on Sunday released a two-minute video of a man pledging loyalty to the terrorists.
Although much of the Frenchspeaking man’s face is obscured by a dark cloth and he never states his name in the video, the US-based SITE Intelligence Group, which tracks extremist postings online, identified him as Azimov.
“You started it by bombing Islamic lands,” the man says in the video, released by Amaq, ISIS’s propaganda wing. “France, you started it by killing Muslims.”
Although the video is undated, in the background a steady rain can be seen and heard. Rain was falling in Paris on Saturday.
As word of the attacker’s identity emerged, Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov distanced himself from the republic native.
“I consider it necessary to state that all responsibility for the fact that [Azimov] went on the road of crime lies completely with the authorities of France,” he told Russian media. “He was only born in Chechnya, and his growing-up, the formation of his personality, his views and persuasions occurred in French society.”
Azimov emigrated with his family to Nice, France, in the early 2000s before settling in Strasbourg, Le Parisien reported.
In the wake of the attack, President Trump tweeted Sunday that changes “must be made” in order to defeat terrorism.
“So sad to see the Terror Attack in Paris,” he wrote. “At some point countries will have to open their eyes & see what is really going on. This kind of sickness & hatred is not compatible with a loving, peaceful, & successful country! Changes to our thought process on terror must be made.”