French hunt accomplices of slain Strasbourg suspect

STRASBOURG, FRANCE — French police have killed the man they believe attacked Strasbourg’s Christmas market but investigators kept digging Friday for accomplices in a city known for a high concentration of potential extremists.

A fourth victim of Tuesday night’s attack died Friday.

The dead included a Thai tourist and a 29-year-old Italian journalist. A dozen other people were wounded.

The market reopened Friday in a bid to reclaim a festive spirit after being closed for two days after the attack.

French President Emmanuel Macron paid a visit, arriving after a European summit in Brussels to offer his condolences to the wounded and victims’ families and to salute security forces.

He spoke with the three police officers who less than 24 hours earlier shot and killed Cherif Chekatt, the attack suspect.

For three days, Macron has faced back-to-back national emergencies, dealing with the Christmas market attack and in the midst of a month of grassroots protests over the cost of living that have grown increasingly violent and have devastated parts of the French capital.

The government has implored the French not to take to the streets Saturday.

Chekatt, a 29-year-old Strasbourg native, was killed Thursday night in a confrontation with three police officers in his childhood neighbourhood after a massive manhunt.

The depth of his radicalization and connections remained unclear, but his path seemed to reflect an increasingly common hybrid European extremist who moves from delinquency to sowing terror.

The Islamic State group’s Amaq news agency claimed Chekatt was a “soldier” of the group but Interior Minister Christophe Castaner rejected the claim as “totally opportunistic.”

Investigators are now trying to identify “eventual accomplices or co-authors who could have helped or encouraged him,” said prosecutor Remy Heitz, in charge of terrorism cases in France.