Soldier shoots knife attacker near Louvre in Paris: police

A soldier shot and seriously injured a man who tried to attack him with a knife on Friday near the Louvre museum in Paris, sources say.

The individual cried out “Allahu Akbar” and police believe he wanted to carry out a terrorist attack, Michel Cadot, the head of the French capital’s police force, said on Friday.

“We are dealing with an attack from an individual who was clearly aggressive and represented a direct threat, and whose comments lead us to believe that he wished to carry out a terrorist incident,” Cadot told reporters.

“There was also a second individual who was behaving suspiciously, who has also been detained, but for now there does not appear to be a link between that individual and the attack,” added Cadot.

Cadot said the soldier who had been attacked had suffered some light wounds, and that others soldiers had fired five shots at the attacker, wounding the man. He added that no explosives had been found in the attacker’s bag at the Louvre.

The identity and nationality of the individual suspected of attacking a soldier at Paris' Louvre site remains unknown for now, French Interior Ministry spokesman Pierre-Henry Brandet told reporters on Friday. 

The ministry tweeted that a “serious public security incident” was underway in Louvre area. Streets in the area were cordoned off to traffic and pedestrians.

The shooting comes with France on its highest state of alert with thousands of troops patrolling the streets following a string of attacks in the last few years.

Soldiers in uniform carrying automatic rifles can be regularly seen walking in the area around the Louvre, which is one of the main tourist attractions in Paris, drawing millions of visitors every year.

The huge former royal palace in the heart of the city is home to the Mona Lisa and other world-famous works of art but also a shopping complex and numerous exhibition spaces. The museum was already suffering from a fall in visitor numbers after recent attacks in France. Last year, visitor numbers slumped 15 percent from 2015 to around 7.3 million. Over the last two years, numbers are down about two million, casting doubt on the Louvre’s claim to be the most visited museum in the world.

France has suffered a string of attacks, beginning in January 2015 when gunmen killed cartoonists and journalists at the offices of the Charlie Hebdo satirical newspaper in Paris in revenge for publishing cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad. Another attacker went on to kill shoppers in a Jewish supermarket, killing a total of 17 people in three days of bloodshed.

Ten months later, gunmen and suicide bombers from the Daesh jihadist group attacked bars, restaurants, a concert hall and the national stadium in Paris on Nov. 13, 2015, killing 130 people.

Last July, a Tunisian extremist rammed a lorry through crowds celebrating Bastille Day in Nice on France’s south coast, crushing 86 people to death.

And in November, French police broke up an alleged jihadist terror ring which was allegedly planning to attack Paris.

— With AFP and Reuters

Source : Arab News