France raises its alert level to maximum after a Nice attack
PARIS: An attacker armed with a knife killed three people at a church Thursday in the Mediterranean city of Nice, French authorities said. It was the third attack in two months in France amid a growing furor over caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad that were re-published by the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo.
Other confrontations and attacks were reported on Thursday in the southern city of Avignon and in the Saudi city of Jeddah, but it was not immediately clear if they were linked to the attack in Nice.
Thursday's assailant in Nice was wounded by police and hospitalized
after the killings at the Notre Dame Basilica, less than a kilometer
(half-mile) from the site in 2016 where another attacker plowed a truck
into a Bastille Day crowd, killing dozens of people.
France's anti-terrorism prosecutor's office opened an investigation
into the Nice killings, which marked the third attack since the
September opening of the trial of 14 people linked to the January 2015
killings at Charlie Hebdo and a kosher supermarket. The gunmen in the
2015 attacks claimed allegiance to the Islamic State group and al-Qaida.
Thursday's attacker was believed to be acting alone and police
are searching for other assailants, said two police officials, who were
not authorized to be publicly named.
"He cried 'Allah Akbar!' over and over, even after he was injured," said Nice Mayor Christian Estrosi,
who told BFM television that two women and a man had died, two inside
the church and a third who fled to a nearby bar but was mortally
wounded. "The meaning of his gesture left no doubt."
French media
showed the Nice neighborhood locked down and surrounded by police and
emergency vehicles. Sounds of explosions could be heard as sappers
exploded suspicious objects.
The lower house of parliament
suspended a debate on France's new virus restrictions and held a moment
of silence on Thursday for the victims. Prime Minister Jean Castex
rushed from the hall to a crisis center overseeing the aftermath of the
Nice attack. French President Emmanuel Macron was headed to Nice later in the day.
In the southern city of Avignon later in the morning, an armed man was
shot to death by police after he refused to drop his weapon and a
flash-ball shot failed to stop him, one police official said. And a
Saudi state-run news agency said a man stabbed a guard at the French
consulate in Jeddah, wounding the guard before he was arrested.
The
French Council of the Muslim Faith condemned the Nice attack and called
on French Muslims to refrain from festivities this week marking the
birth of Muhammad "as a sign of mourning and in solidarity with the
victims and their loved ones."
Islamic State extremists issued a video on Wednesday renewing calls for attacks against France.
Turkey's Foreign Ministry strongly condemned the attack in Nice.
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 on Saturday accused Macron of Islamophobia over the caricatures and questioned his mental health, prompting Paris to recall its ambassador to Turkey for consultations.
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