Islamic terror continues to plague France. In the latest incident, two soldiers were stabbed on Tuesday while guarding a Jewish center.
(Photo: shutterstock)
A knife-wielding Muslim attacked three French soldiers on Tuesday who were on patrol, securing a Jewish community center in the southern French city of Nice. Two were lightly wounded, and the assailant was arrested. France 24 reports that two alleged accomplices fled the scene.
“It seems like a premeditated and quite violent act,” said regional police chief Marcel Autier.
“The person responsible, who is in his 30s and from the Paris region, is known to police,” Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve told Reuters.
According to Nice Mayor Christian Estrosi, the attacker carried an identity card with the name Moussa Coulibaly. The surname is the same as that of the terrorists who murdered four Jewish hostages in January at the Hyper Cacher supermarket in Paris, although it is not known whether they are related.
The attacker, known to police for previous acts of violence, was reportedly stopped on a tram for not having paid for a ticket. “He paid his fine, but refused to show his identity papers. He got out suddenly near the soldiers and with a sharp knife struck the cheek of one and the arm of another,” France Inter radio reports.
An ISIS Link?
A French security official said the attacker had been sent home by Turkish authorities last week after flying there on a one-way ticket. Turkey is known to be a transit point for Jihadis from Europe on their way to join up with Islamic State (ISIS) in Syria and Iraq. Border police had flagged Coulibaly on January 28 to the attention of their Turkish counterparts on January 28, who promptly returned him home, the French security official said.
Earlier on Tuesday, French authorities arrested seven men and a woman for suspected involvement in a network sending fighters to join Islamic terrorists in Syria. Three of the arrested had traveled to Syria and returned in December 2014, but it was unclear whether they joined ISIS or another terror group.
Since the string of terror attacks that rocked the country in recent weeks, including the Charlie Hebdo massacre and the Hyper Cacher terror attack, France has deployed approximately 10,000 soldiers and policemen to secure Jewish sites and sensitive targets.
By World Israel News staff