NICE IN MOURNING
Man in police custody over alleged links to the suspect Nice church knife attacker in critical condition Thousands of soldiers deployed to protect important sites
Two women embrace in front of the Notre-Dame de l’Assomption Basilica in Nice, France, on Friday during a tribute to the victims killed by a knife attacker the day before. Three prople were killed in the terror attack on Thursday.
paris — France’s interior minister said on Friday more militant attacks on its soil were likely and the country was engaged in a war against radical ideology following the second deadly knife attack in its cities in two weeks.
Minister Gerald Damarnin was speaking a day after an assailant shouting “Allahu Akbar” (God is Greatest) beheaded a woman and killed two other people in a church in Nice.
The man was shot by police and is now in critical condition in a hospital.
“We are in a war against an enemy that is both inside and outside,” Damarnin told RTL radio. “We need to understand that there have been and there will be other events such as these terrible attacks.”
President Emmanuel Macron has deployed thousands of soldiers to protect important sites such as places of worship and schools, and France’s security alert is at its highest level.
Thursday’s attack took place at a time of swelling Muslim anger across the globe at France’s defence of the right to publish blasphemous cartoons.
Tens of thousands of Muslims protested in Bangladesh on Friday, chanting slogans such as “Boycott French products” and carrying banners calling Macron “the world’s biggest terrorist” as they marched in the streets of the capital Dhaka.
France’s chief anti-terrorism prosecutor said the man suspected of carrying out the Nice attack was a Tunisian born in 1999 who had arrived in Europe on Sept. 20 in Lampedusa, the Italian island off Tunisia that is a main landing point for migrants from Africa.
A Tunisian security source and a French police source named the suspect as Brahim Aouissaoui.
A judicial source said on Friday that a 47-year-old man had been taken into custody on Thursday evening on suspicion of having been in contact with the perpetrator of the attack.
The Nice attack occurred just under two weeks after Samuel Paty, a school teacher in a Paris suburb, was beheaded by an 18-year-old Chechen who was apparently incensed by the teacher showing a blasphemous in class.
People gathered in front of the Notre-Dame church on Friday morn
We are in a war against an enemy that is both inside and outside. We need to understand that there have been and there will be other events such as these terrible attacks.” Gerald damarnin, France’s interior minister
I’m from Nice and this is a tragedy once again. We’re a free country. Let’s love freedom — that’s a message to the world. Life should be spiritual. Lefevre, a Nice resident
ing to lay flowers and light candles. Frederic Lefevre attached heartshaped balloons to the church gate.
“I knew him very well, the person who was killed in the church,” said
Lefevre, 50, who wore a French national rugby shirt.
“I’m from Nice and this is a tragedy once again. We’re a free country. Let’s love freedom — that’s a message to the
world. Life should be spiritual.” he said. Another Nice resident, Marc Mercier, 71, said: “It took place in the day to people who weren’t asking for it. It’s appalling.” —