Guns and gas found in Paris attack car
Assailant dies after ramming police van
PARIS: A 31-year-old man on a jihadist watchlist rammed a car loaded with guns and a gas bottle into a police van on the Champs-Elysees on Monday but inflicted no casualties, in the latest of a string of attacks in Paris, sources said.
The assailant died in the incident, although investigators offered no immediate details about the cause. There has been no claim of responsibility for the assault. No police or bystanders were injured.
The attack — which occurred just a short distance from where a jihadist shot dead a police officer two months earlier — was carried out by a man who had been on France’s security watchlist since 2015 over ties to “the radical Islamist movement”, sources close to the probe said.
They identified him as Adam Dzaziri, who had been raised in the hardline Salafi Islamic ideology, and did not have a criminal record.
Interior Minister Gerard Collomb said a car hit the leading vehicle in a line of police vans as they headed down the Champs-Elysees, near the Grand Palais exhibition hall.
“The security forces have been targeted in France once again,” he said.
Ministry spokesman Pierre-Henry Brandet said the car, a white Renault Megane, caught fire.
Gendarmes jumped out of the vehicle, ran to the car, smashed its windows and pulled out the driver in an apparent attempt to save him, according to witness accounts. The interior minister confirmed that he died.
Video showed a thick orange smoke pouring from the car after the impact as the vehicle sat in the middle of the prestigious avenue which is lined with shops and cinemas.
Police sources said they found a Kalashnikov assault rifle, two handguns, ammunition as well as a gas bottle in the car.
The “arms, explosives... could potentially blow this car up”, Mr Collomb said. Sources previously said there were multiple gas bottles in the car.
The ex-wife, brother and sisterin-law of Dzaziri were detained late on Monday afternoon after police questioned them at the family home outside Paris.
The assailant’s father was also “taken into custody during the evening”, the source said.
The suspect’s father said his son “had a registered weapon, he practised shooting”. A source close to the case said the 31-year-old had a firearms permit.
Police searched on Monday night the residence the suspect shared with his family in Plessis-Pate, a town about 40 minutes’ drive from central Paris.
The local mayor Sylvain Tanguy said the family was “very discreet and didn’t go out much”. “You could tell when you saw them in the street that they were very religious,” he said.
Noemie Pfister, walking with her infant child and a friend, said she saw a car fly past a column of police vans, then fishtail. She wasn’t sure if she saw it ram into one of the vehicles because it happened so quickly, but she can’t forget the smoke and flames.
“I saw gendarmes get out of a van, run, break the window” of the car, she said in an interview. “They took the man out and put him a bit further away [from the car] on the other side of the road,” she recalled.
“I couldn’t understand, but I find it really strange that a car would pass [police] vans and all of a sudden spit fire,” said Ms Pfister. “I thought in my mind of an attack.”
Leonard Odihe said he saw officers break into the car, pull the man out and throw two weapons on the ground, “a big pistol and another big arm like the weapons police carry”. Mr Odihe said he also saw bottles of gas, one of which apparently exploded inside the car.
The interior minister said the current situation in France shows a new security law he is to present is needed to eventually “maintain a high security level” without the state of emergency.