French security forces yesterday launched a manhunt after a car rammed into anti-terrorism soldiers outside their barracks in a Paris suburb, injuring six.
The car sped off after the incident, described by Levallois-Perret Mayor Patrick Balkany as “without doubt a deliberate act.”
The Paris prosecutors’ office said its anti-terrorism unit has launched a probe into “attempted killings ... in relation to a terrorist undertaking.”
Photo: AFP
French Minister for the Armed Forces Florence Parly condemned the car ramming as a “cowardly act,” saying it did “nothing to dent soldiers’ determination to work for the security of the French people.”
“Security forces are actively seeking the perpetrator who is on the run. The ongoing probe will determine his motives and the circumstances in which he acted,” Parly said.
France, which has been under a state of emergency since the November 2015 attacks in Paris, has seen a string of assaults on security forces, including those guarding key tourist sites.
Parly said three of the soldiers were “more seriously injured.”
All six were hospitalized, but none have life-threatening injuries, Balkany said.
They are part of the 7,000-strong anti-terrorism Sentinelle force set up after the November 2015 bombings and shootings that killed 130 people in the French capital and were claimed by the Islamic State (IS) group.
The group has repeatedly said that France is a target because of its participation in the US-led international coalition fighting the militant group, with French jets carrying out airstrikes against the extremist group in Syria.
Yesterday’s incident took place at about 8am outside the barracks in the northwestern Paris suburb of Levallois-Perret.
“This morning, as a group of our soldiers were leaving their barracks to go out on patrol, a BMW vehicle parked in the alley rammed into them,” Balkany told news channel BFMTV, adding that the car had “accelerated very fast.”
The incident came just four days after Sentinelle soldiers arrested an 18-year-old with a history of psychological problems at the Eiffel Tower, where he brandished a knife and shouted “Allahu Akbar” (God is greatest).
He told investigators he wanted to kill a soldier, sources close to the case said.
In February, a man armed with a machete attacked four soldiers on patrol at Paris’ Louvre Museum, while in April another extremist shot and killed a policeman on the Champs Elysees, the French capital’s most famous boulevard.
In June, a 40-year-old Algerian doctorate student who had pledged allegiance to the Islamic State group attacked a policeman with a hammer outside Notre Dame cathedral.
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