France on highest alert after suspected terrorist attack kills three
NICE, France — A man armed with a knife attacked people inside a French church and killed three Thursday, prompting the government to raise its security alert to the maximum level hours before a nationwide coronavirus lockdown.
The attack in Mediterranean city of Nice was the third in two months that French authorities have attributed to Islamic extremists, including the beheading of a teacher who had shown caricatures of the prophet Muhammad in class after the images were republished by a satirical newspaper targeted in a 2015 attack.
The assailant in Thursday’s attack was seriously wounded by police and hospitalized after the killings at Nice’s Notre Dame Basilica, which is half a mile from the site where another attacker in 2016 plowed a truck into a Bastille Day crowd, killing dozens of people.
France’s anti-terrorism prosecutor said the suspect is a Tunisian born in 1999 who arrived in Italy by reaching the Mediterranean island of Lampedusa on Sept. 20 and traveled to Paris on Oct. 9. He was carrying a copy of Islam’s holy book, the Quran, and two telephones, prosecutor Jean-Francois Ricard told a news conference late Thursday.
A knife with a 6.7-inch blade used in the attack was found near him, along with a bag containing two unused knives, the prosecutor said. He said the attacker had not been on the radar of intelligence agencies as a potential threat.
The French government promised to protect France’s Jewish community from extremists after a double stabbing in Paris blamed on Islamic terrorism.
Ricard detailed the gruesome scene encountered inside the Nice basilica, where a man and woman were killed by the attacker. The 60-year-old woman suffered “a very deep throat slitting, like a decapitation,†Ricard said. The 55-year-old man died after deep cuts to his throat, the prosecutor added. The third victim, a 44-year-old woman, managed to flee the church but died at a nearby restaurant.
An investigation was opened for murder and attempted murder in connection with a terrorist enterprise, a common term for such crimes. French President Emmanuel Macron said he would immediately increase the number of soldiers deployed to protect schools and religious sites from around 3,000 to 7,000.
The attack in Nice came amid a fierce debate in France and beyond over the republication of the caricatures of Muhammad by the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo.
The French Consulate in the Saudi city of Jidda was also targeted Thursday. Also, a man claiming allegiance to an anti-immigrant group was shot and killed by police in the southern French city of Avignon, and scattered confrontations were reported elsewhere, but it is unclear whether they were linked to the attack in Nice.
France’s national police chief had already ordered increased security at churches and mosques this week, but no police appeared to be guarding the Nice church when it was attacked, and Associated Press reporters saw no visible security forces at multiple prominent religious sites in Paris on Thursday. French churches have been attacked by extremists in recent years, and Thursday’s killings come ahead of the Roman Catholic All Saints’ holiday.
Thursday’s attacker was believed to be acting alone, and police are not searching for other assailants, said two police officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to be publicly named.
“He cried ‘Allahu akbar!’ over and over, even after he was injured,†said Nice Mayor Christian Estrosi, who confirmed that a woman and a man had died inside the church, while a second woman fled to a nearby bar but was mortally wounded. “The meaning of his gesture left no doubt.â€
France announced a full nationwide coronavirus lockdown and German officials imposed a partial four-week lockdown
Shots punctuated the air and witnesses screamed as police stationed at the grandiose doors to the church appeared to fire at the attacker inside, according to videos obtained by the Associated Press. For a time after the attack, explosions could be heard as sappers detonated suspicious objects.
It was the third attack since Charlie Hebdo republished the caricatures in September as the trial opened for the 2015 attacks at the paper’s offices and a kosher supermarket. The gunmen in that attack claimed allegiance to Islamic State and Al Qaeda, which both recently called anew for strikes against France.
A verdict is planned for Nov. 13, the fifth anniversary of another series of deadly Islamic State attacks in Paris.
The recent attacks come amid renewed outcry over depictions of Islam’s most revered prophet — whose birthday was marked in several countries Thursday — and the French government’s fierce defense of the right to publish and show them. Muslims have held protests in several countries and called for a boycott of French goods. Dozens of Pakistani students rallied in the capital on Thursday to denounce Macron.
“With the attack against Samuel Paty, it was freedom of speech that was targeted,†Prime Minister Jean Castex told lawmakers Thursday, referring to the teacher who was beheaded after showing his class caricatures of the prophet during a civics lesson. “With this attack in Nice, it is freedom of religion.â€
Earlier, the lower house of Parliament suspended a debate on France’s new virus restrictions and held a moment of silence for the victims. Castex rushed from the hall to a crisis center overseeing the aftermath of the Nice attack and later returned to announce the alert level increase. Macron left for Nice almost immediately.
“Very clearly, it is France which is under attack,†Macron said as he stood before the church. He added that all of France offered its support to Catholics “so that their religion can be exercised freely in our country. So that every religion can be practiced. â€
In Avignon on Thursday morning, a man with a firearm was shot and killed by police after he refused to drop his weapon and a warning shot failed to stop him, a police official said. And a Saudi state-run news agency said a man stabbed a guard at the French Consulate in Jidda, wounding the guard before he was arrested.
Although many groups and nations have been angered or frustrated by France’s position on the cartoons, several issued their condolences Thursday, as did France’s traditional allies.
The French Council of the Muslim Faith condemned the Nice attack and called on French Muslims to refrain from festivities marking the birth of Muhammad “as a sign of mourning and in solidarity with the families of victims and the Catholics of France.â€
Turkey’s Foreign Ministry strongly condemned the attack. “We stand in solidarity with the people of France against terror and violence,†the statement said.
Relations between Turkey and France hit a new low after Turkey’s president accused Macron of Islamophobia over the caricatures and questioned his mental health, prompting Paris to recall its ambassador to Turkey for consultations.
The attack in Nice came less than two weeks after Paty, the teacher, was beheaded. In September, a man who had sought asylum in France attacked bystanders outside Charlie Hebdo’s former offices with a butcher knife.
French Jewish and Catholic sites have frequently been targeted, including the killing of the Rev. Jacques Hamel, who had his throat slit by Islamic militants while celebrating Mass in his Normandy church and a plot to bomb Paris’ Notre Dame Cathedral. Those attacks were claimed by Islamic State, which also is believed to have recruited a man now on trial for an unsuccessful plot to attack a church.
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