BEHEADING HORROR AT CHURCH
New terror in Nice as Islamist knifeman kills three
A KNIFE-WIELDING terrorist shouted ‘Allahu Akbar’ as he beheaded one woman and hacked another woman and a man to death in an attack on a Catholic church in France yesterday.
He injured several others at the Notre Dame basilica in the city of Nice before he was shot by police and arrested.
Images emerged last night showing the wounded attacker lying on the bloodied tiled floor of the basilica, his head resting on a marble step. His right shoulder and left leg are bandaged and his hands are apparently cuffed behind his back as he is tended by a paramedic.
The knifeman, who was taken to hospital, had used a 12in knife. He was carrying two more knives, a copy of the Koran and a mobile phone. He has been named
‘Tell my children I love them’
locally as Brahim Aouissaoui, a 21-yearold Tunisian who arrived in Europe on a migrant boat last month.
Christian Estrosi, the mayor of Nice, said the man executed the worshippers ‘in a horrible way’ and cried ‘ Allahu Akbar (God is greatest) over and over, even after he was injured’.
One of the victims was named as Vincent Loques, 54, a father of two who had worked at the church for ten years. He had his throat slit.
Neither of the women has been named. One, a mother aged 44, who had fled bleeding to a burger bar, told paramedics ‘Tell my children that I love them’ before dying from her wounds.
The other, a 60-year-old woman parishioner, had her throat cut near the basilica’s holy water font as Aouissaoui tried to decapitate her.
Within hours of the attack, a man was arrested in the Paris suburb of Sartrouville after he reportedly told his father he planned ‘to do as in Nice’ while an Afghan man carrying a 12in knife was detained in the city of Lyon. Another man, a 33-year- old from far-Right, antiimmigrant group Generation Identity, was shot dead by police near Avignon after he threatened a merchant of North African descent and refused to drop his gun.
A Saudi citizen was detained in Jeddah for stabbing a security guard outside the French consulate. President Emmanuel Macron, who travelled to Nice, said France had been hit by an ‘Islamist terror attack’. Last night it emerged that Aouissaoui, who was not listed as a suspected militant in Tunisia, landed on the Italian island of Lampedusa in late September on a migrant boat. He was placed in virus quarantine then released.
French anti-terrorist prosecutors said he came through the Italian city of Bari on October 9.
He was carrying an Italian Red Cross document and arrived at Nice railway station at about 6.30am yesterday. He changed clothes and arrived at Notre Dame church at 8.29am, as it opened its doors for private prayer.
It is half a mile from the scene of a 2016 terror attack in which an Islamic State militant from Tunisia ploughed a truck into a Bastille Day crowd, killing 86.
Witnesses said the bloodshed at Notre Dame unfolded shortly before 9am. Pizza restaurant worker Aurelien Tibot, 27, said: ‘I was with my boss having a coffee and I saw a man dash into the cathedral, carrying a knife. He was short and dressed all in black. The police arrived very quickly and the next thing I heard was the sound of gunshots, about four of five of them.’
Cafe waiter Daniel Conilh, 32, added: ‘A woman came in straight from the church and said, “Run, run, someone has been stabbing people”.’ Video footage showed police with guns and Tasers near the side entrance of the church. Several gunshots could be heard.
French authorities are treating the incident as a terror attack, the third in two months in France to be attributed to Muslim extremists – including the beheading of teacher Samuel Paty – amid a row over the publication of caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed.
The attack was condemned by world leaders. Prime Minister Boris Johnson said it was ‘ barbaric’ adding: ‘The UK stands steadfastly with France against terror and intolerance.’
Pope Francis denounced the ‘savage’ attack while the Vatican added that ‘terrorism and violence can never be accepted’.
The French Council of the Muslim Faith called on French Muslims to refrain from festivities marking the birth of Mohammed ‘as a sign of mourning and in solidarity with the families of victims and the Catholics of France’.
But former Malaysian premier Mahathir Mohamad sparked widespread anger by tweeting that Muslims had a right ‘to kill millions of French people’, prompting Twitter to delete his post.