clear

Creating new perspectives since 2009

Daesh claims Paris shooting, one policeman killed

April 21, 2017 at 1:37 am

French security forces cordon the area after a gunman attack, killing a police officer at Champs Elysees in Paris, France on April 20, 2017. One police officer was killed and two others were seriously injured Thursday when a gunman opened fire at a police patrol on the famous Champs-Elysees boulevard here, according to the Interior Ministry. ( Raphael Lafargue – Anadolu Agency )

A French policeman was shot dead and two others were wounded in central Paris on Thursday night in an attack carried out days before presidential elections and quickly claimed by the Daesh militant group.

President Francois Hollande said he was convinced the “cowardly killing” on the Champs Elysees boulevard, in which the assailant was himself shot dead by police, was an act of terrorism.

The wide avenue that leads away from the Arc de Triomphe had been crowded with Parisians and tourists enjoying a spring evening, but police quickly cleared the area, which remained empty well into the night of all but heavily armed security forces and police vehicles.

Paris Prosecutor Francois Molins said the man had been identified, but investigators were still assessing if he had accomplices.

A police arrest warrant issued earlier on Thursday, which was seen by Reuters after the attack, warned of a dangerous individual who had come into France by train from Belgium on Thursday. It was unclear if that man was the attacker or linked to the shooting.

Officers searched the home of the dead attacker in a town east of Paris, a police source said.

“The sense of duty of our policemen tonight averted a massacre … they prevented a bloodbath on the Champs Elysees,” Interior Minister Matthias Fekl told reporters.

“A little after 9 PM a vehicle stopped alongside a police car which was parked. Immediately a man got out and fired on the police vehicle, mortally wounding a police officer,” Interior Ministry spokesman Pierre-Henry Brandet said.

Witness Chelloug, a kitchen assistant, told Reuters he was walking out of a shop and saw a man get out of a car and open fire with a rifle on a policeman. “The policeman fell down. I heard six shots, I was afraid. I have a two year-old girl and I thought I was going to die… He shot straight at the police officer.”

The claim came quickly and the naming of the assailant suggested a degree of direct contact with Daesh.

Police sources said the man was known to intelligence services. French television networks reported that he was a 39-year-old French national known for previous violent crimes.

Police authorities called on the public to avoid the area.

The Arc de Triomphe monument and the top half of the Champs Elysees were packed with police vans, lights flashing and heavily armed police shutting the area down after what was described by one journalist as a major exchange of fire.

The incident came as French voters prepared go to the polls on Sunday in the most tightly-contested presidential election in decades.

“We shall be of the utmost vigilance, especially in relation to the election,” said President Hollande, who is not himself running for re-election.

On Thursday, speaking after a television appearance, she said she was “deeply angry” as well as sad for the police victims “because not everything is done … to protect our compatriots. They need more than our compassion.”

Candidates in the election said they had been warned about the Marseille attackers. Francois Fillon, who is the conservative candidate, said he would cancel the campaign events he had been planning for Friday.

He also called for campaigning generally to be suspended, although from midnight on Friday the law says it has to stop anyway. Far left candidate Jean-Luc Melenchon said campaigning should continue. In November, 2015, Paris was rocked by near simultaneous gun-and-bomb attacks on entertainment sites, in which 130 people died and 368 were wounded. Daesh claimed responsibility. Two of the 10 known perpetrators were Belgian citizens and three others were French.