ISIS claims attack on police officers
Attacker appears to have acted alone in Paris shopping area.
PARIS — An attacker with an automatic weapon opened fire on police on Paris’ iconic Champs-Élysées on Thursday night, killing one officer and seriously wounding two others before police shot and killed him. The Islamic State quickly claimed responsibility for the attack.
Paris police spokeswoman Johanna Primevert said the att acker t argeted officers guarding the area near the Franklin Roosevelt subway station at the center of the shopping boulevard popular with tourists. She said he appeared to be acting alone.
Police and soldiers sealed off the area, ordering tourists back into hotels and blocking people from approaching the scene. The attack came three days before the first round of balloting in France’s tense presidential election. Security has been especially high since Tuesday, when police said they thwarted a terror attack by arresting two men.
The P a r i s pro s e c u t o r ’s office said counterterrorism investigators were involved in the probe of Thursday’s attack. Two police officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to publicly discuss the investigation, said the attacker had been flagged as an extremist. They had no other details about him.
The claim of responsibility several hours after the attack came unusually swiftly for the Islamic State. In a statement from its Amaq news agency, the group gave a pseudonym for the shooter, Abu Yusuf al-Beljiki, indicating he was Belgian. Soon after the Ara- bic language statement, the group sent one out in French, describing an attack “in the heart of Paris.”
Interior Ministry spokesman Pierre-Henry Brandet said on BFM television that a man came out of a car and opened fire on a police vehicle. He said officers were “deliberately” targeted.
President Francois Hollande, addressing the nation from the Élysée presidential palace, not far from where the attack occurred, said French authorities were “convinced” the shooting, which occurred just days before the first round of the French presidential elec tion, pointed to a ter- rorist act.
Hollande said a passer-by had also been wounded in the shooting, but he did not provide other details. He held an emergency meeting with the prime minister Thursday night and planned to convene the defense council this morning.
Speaking in Washington during a news conference with Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni, President Donald Trump said the shooting “looks like another terrorist attack” and sent condolences to France.
“We have to be st rong , and we have to be vigilant,” Trump said. “And I’ve been saying it for a long time.”
E m e r g e n c y v e h i c l e s blocked the wide avenue lined with shops that cuts across central Paris between the Arc de Triomphe and the Tuileries Gardens, normally packed with cars and tourists. Subway stations were closed off.
The gunfire sent scores of tourists fleeing into side streets.
“They were running, running,” said 55-year-old Badi Ftaïti, who lives in the area. “Some were crying. There were tens, maybe even hundreds of them.”