ATTACKER KILLS TWO IN FRENCH TRAIN STATION
Terrorism suspected, weeks after incident at the same station
Two women were fatally stabbed Sunday in a rampage at the main train station in the southern French city of Marseille, and the Islamic State claimed the attacker was one of its "soldiers."
French National Police said soldiers patrolling the station fatally shot the suspect, and authorities were trying to find ties to Islamic extremism.
Police in Marseille evacuated the St. Charles station, the city's largest, after the attack, and French President Emmanuel Macron said he was “deeply outraged” by the “barbarous” knife attack.
French Interior Minister Gérard Collomb said said some witnesses reported they heard the assailant shouting “Allahu akbar,” Arabic for “God is great.”
Collomb said video shows a man attacking one woman, running away, then attacking a second woman.
The incident came two weeks after four young American women were doused with acid at the same station. A lone female attacker with mental health problems was arrested at the scene in that case, and at the time authorities said terrorism was not suspected.
On Sunday, one victim was stabbed to death while the other had her throat slit, according to Agence France- Presse and other media outlets, citing police.
The Paris prosecutor’s office, which oversees all terror cases in France, said it had opened a counterterrorism investigation into the Marseille attack.
The Aamaq news agency, which is tied to the Islamic State, also known as ISIS, said Sunday night that the assailant was acting in response to calls by ISIS to target countries in the U. S.- led coalition fighting extremists in Syria and Iraq.
The statement did not provide details or evidence of a direct link.
More than 10,000 French soldiers, police and other personnel protect tourist sites and transportation hubs under Operation Sentinelle, started on the heels of a November 2015 terror attack that killed more than 130 people.
The program, which costs about $ 500,000 per day, has come under fire.
“It is essentially just posturing that has zero operational impact,” Jean-Charles Brisard of the Center for the Analysis of Terrorism told FRANCE 24.
In August, a driver rammed two Marseille bus stops, killing a woman, but officials said it wasn’t terror- related.
In April, police said they thwarted a “terror attack” and arrested two suspected radicals in Marseille, days before the first round of France’s presidential election.