Shooter kills 3, wounds 12 in France
A shooting in Strasbourg killed three and wounded 12 others near a famous Christmas market.
PARIS — Three people died and 12 others were wounded in France when a man flagged as a possible extremist sprayed gunfire near the city of Strasbourg’s famous Christmas market Tuesday, sparking a search for the suspect. French officials later put the country on increased alert for terror attacks.
French prosecutors said a terrorism investigation was opened, though authorities did not say what they thought to be a motive. Strasbourg is home to the European Parliament, one of several places locked down after the shooting and those inside prevented from leaving.
It was unclear if the market — the nucleus of an al-Qaida-linked plot in 2000 — was the intended target. The alleged assailant got inside a security zone around the venue and opened fire from there, Mayor Roland Ries said on BFM television.
Two years ago, a Tunisian man drove a hijacked truck into a busy Berlin Christmas market, an attack that killed 12 people. Strasbourg, which promotes itself as the “Capital of Christmas,” is located on France’s border with Germany, about 310 miles east of Paris.
Authorities said they identified the suspect in Tuesday’s bloodshed and he had a criminal record. The prefect of the Strasbourg region said the alleged shooter also was on a watch list of potentially radicalized individuals.
Gendarmes went to the suspect’s home to arrest him before the attack, but he wasn’t there, Stephane Morisse of police union FGP said. They found explosive materials, he said.
France, where most of Europe’s worst terror attacks of recent years took place, is raising its terror alert level and sending security reinforcements to Strasbourg, Interior Minister Christophe Castaner said early Wednesday.
Some 350 security forces and two helicopters were involved in the search for the alleged assailant, who had been radicalized for “several years” and confronted law enforcement officers twice while he “sowed terror” in Strasbourg, Castaner said.
The death toll stood at three Wednesday, he said. Two police union officials said earlier there were four victims.
A dozen more people were wounded, half of them who were in “absolute emergency” critical condition, Castaner said.
The alleged shooter was shot and wounded as well, by soldiers guarding the Christmas market, according to Stephane Morisse of police union FGP.
Witnesses described hearing gunshots, screams and the shouts of police officers ordering people to stay indoors before the area fell silent and the officers fanned out.
“I heard two or three shots ... then I heard screams. I got close to the window. I saw people running. After that I closed the shutters. Then I heard more shots, closer this time,” Yoann Bazard, 27, who lives in central Strasbourg.
“I thought maybe it’s firecrackers,” he said.
President Emmanuel Macron adjourned a meeting at the presidential palace Tuesday night to monitor the emergency.
The attack revived memories of a new millennium terror plot targeting Strasbourg’s Christmas market. Ten suspected Islamic militants were convicted and sentenced to prison in December 2004 for their role in a plot to blow up the market on the New Year’s Eve ushering in 2000.