France terror attacks

Paris

8 islamic militants shot people and blew themselves up causing hundreds of wounded and 127 deads.
At pubs, a theatre and at a stadium.
Undiscriminately shooting at everybody.
Another black day within months after the Hebdo attack.

My thoughts are with the family and loved ones of the victims.

Valence,

January 2016.

29-year old Frenchman of Tunisian descent rammed over a civilian and a guard in an entrance of a mosque in Valence, Drôme, reportedly while chanting Allahu Akbar (Allah is the greatest). He then put his car into reverse to try to ram the soldiers again who fired warning shots and then fired to disable the driver. The driver said he wanted to kill troops because "troops killed people" and that he wanted to be killed by the troops.

Paris,

On 7 January 2016 in Paris, a man wearing a fake explosive belt attacked police officers with a meat cleaver while shouting "Allahu Akbar!" He was shot and killed by officers when he failed to obey an order to stop.
The attempted attack took place on the one-year anniversary of the 2015 Hebdo shootings.
The failed attack occurred in the Goutte d'Or district where the population is predominantly of north African and sub-Saharan African origin. The perp named Belgacem shouted "Allahu Akbar" and pulled out a meat cleaver as he approached a guard at the local police station. He was shot and killed when he ignored orders to halt. His pocket contained a written rambling statement that included a drawing of an ISIS flag, and his pledge of allegiance to the caliphate.
Tarek Belgacem was identified by police in North Rhine-Westphalia as the attacker.
He was a Tunisian immigrant who moved to Europe via Romania in 2011. Initially, it was known that Belgacem had used at least seven aliases. It was later determined that he had a total of 20 identities in seven different countries.
He had been posing as an asylum-seeker from Iraq or Syria, and was living in a center for asylum-seekers in Recklinghausen, Germany, since August 2015.
By 11 January, it was reported the suspect had surfaced in Germany in 2013 after living in France for five years.
Police found an Arabic banner reading "Islamic State forever" on the wall of a communal kitchen in the center.
At the site of the attack, Paris police officers found "a piece of paper on the man's body with the Muslim profession of faith, a drawing of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) flag and a pledge of allegiance to the extremist group's leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi". The suspect was also carrying a cellphone with a German SIM card.

Marseille,

A 15-year old Turkish boy attempted to decapitate a teacher from a Jewish school in Marseilles with a machete.

Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray

26-07-16,

A Priest, (Father Jacques Hamel, believed to be 86) has been cowardly beheaded and another hostage is ‘fighting for his/her life’ after two knife-wielding terrorists took two nuns and several worshippers hostage at a church in northern France.
They were at a Catholic mass at 9am in the French town of Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray, near Rouen
On of the nuns managed to escape and warned police.
Quickley after arrival a special police unit killed two bearded men responsible for the hostage.
A third suspect has reportedly been arrested outside the church.
Local media claims Father Jacques Hamel, believed to be 86-years-old, was the priest slaughtered by the duo as A’maq news agency, which is connected to ISIS, has officially reported that “two soldiers of the Islamic State” carried out the savage attack.
According to security sources, one of the attackers was a convicted ‘electronic tag wearing’ terrorist living with his parents.
Supporters of the depraved death cult are celebrating the horrific attack at the church which was reportedly on a terrorist ‘hit list’ which it is claimed French police have known about since April 2015 – following the arrest of an extremist in Paris last year.
Again a cowardly attack against, when will our politicians wake up to see the danger they brought to us?


Father Jacques Hamel

Orly airport,

Two soldiers patrolling Orly airport in Paris have shot a man dead after he tackled their female colleague to the floor and tried to take her weapon, according to French Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian.
He tackled the woman and was able to grabb her gun, he used her as a shield. When he rose up a little the other soldiers got a chance to shoot him.
The man, a known criminal named Zyian Belgacem, had earlier in the day opened fire on a police officer during an identity check in the northern Paris suburb of Garges-les-Gonesse, according to Interior Minister Bruno Le Roux. He was stopped by an officer for traffic violations. At some point he unarmed the policeman and shot him. The officer was only slightly injured.
Then, Paris police said, he stole a woman's car at gunpoint. It was found near Orly.
Police did not immediately provide a motive or identify the attacker, though the Paris prosecutor's office said he was 39 and had a record of robbery and drug offenses.
The office said he did not appear in a French government database of people considered potential threats to national security.
The prosecutor's office said its anti-terrorism division was handling the investigation and had taken the attacker's father and brother into custody for questioning.
Francois Hollande, the French president, praised the courage and efficiency of troops and police following Saturday's incidents.
In a written statement, Hollande reaffirmed the state's "determination to act without respite to fight terrorism, defend our compatriots' security and ensure the protection of the territory".

Paris, Champs Elyssee.

A man stopped his vehicle next to a police van and opened fire with an AK killing 1 and wounding two officers and a tourist.
He was shot dead by a fourth officer.
Police started a manhunt to find another suspect but this man proved to be innocent.
IS immediately claimed responsibility.

The killer, named Karim Cheufri, had a message from IS.
He was a known criminal and was allready convicted twice for attempting to kill police officers.
Allthough he was radicalized police had no knowlegde of that fact.
Investigations are launched to find out why the man wasnt on the terrorist list in France.

Reuters, Paris,

French prosecutors launched a terrorism investigation after a man wielding a knife and shouting the Arabic phrase "Allahu Akbar" (God is great), tried to force his way in to the Eiffel Tower in Paris on Saturday night, a judicial source said.
The incident at the world-famous tourist landmark was designated a terrorism case because of the suspect's statements to police, in which he said he wanted to attack a soldier, and his apparent radicalization, the source said.
No one was injured in the incident that occurred around 11.30 p.m. (2130 GMT) on Saturday shortly before closing time, Eiffel Tower operator SETE said in a statement on Sunday.
The man, brandishing a knife, tried to force his way through a security check before being stopped, it said. Police evacuated the tower to carry out a check of the entire site.
A source close to the investigation said the suspect, a French national born in Mauritania in 1998, had been in a psychiatric hospital for several months and was granted permission to leave care from Aug. 4 to Aug. 6.
During police questioning, the man said he had wanted to carry out an attack against a soldier and had been in contact with a member of Islamic State who had encouraged him to act, the source said.
The suspect was convicted last December for defending acts of terrorism and for making death threats, the source said. He was given a four-month suspended sentence.
France has been under state of emergency legislation since November 2015 Islamist attacks in which 130 people were killed in and around Paris. Its interior minister said in a newspaper interview published on Sunday that the threat of militant attacks was "very high".
After pushing his way past a security guard at the entrance to the Eiffel Tower, the man approached soldiers patrolling at the site and, holding a blade, shouted 'Allahu Akbar', the source said.
But he complied when the soldiers told him to put down his weapon and offered no resistance when arrested, the source added.
Security forces have been targeted in several incidents this year, including two on the Champs-Elysees avenue and one outside Notre Dame Cathedral, also renowned tourist sites.
Militant attacks in France led to a drop in visitor numbers last year but activity has recovered in 2017.

Marseille,

Station Saint Charles,

A man carried out an attack with a knife at this station, yelling the infamous but well known Allah Akbar.
At least two women are reported to have been killed, aged 17 and 20.
The station has been closed.
Anti terrorist squadmembers killed the man.
It was the second attack in marseille, when a month ago a car slammed into a busstop.
There are no reports about his identity other than that he was known to the police.

More to follow....

Anti-Semitic slaying of 85-year-old prompts outcry in France

By Jeffrey Schaeffer and Sylvie Corbet,

PARIS —

Like many who survived Nazi horrors, Mireille Knoll embraced life, eating out and going to the theater despite limited means. Even as age and Parkinson’s disease took their toll, she delighted in receiving guests — until one of them allegedly stabbed the 85-year-old to death because she was Jewish.
The brutal killing in Paris last week has raised uncomfortable questions about resurgent anti-Semitism in France.
“I thought I was going to die on the spot. I cried all the tears in my body and I thought of her. She didn’t deserve this,” her anguished son, Daniel Knoll, told The Associated Press Tuesday, near the Paris public housing project his mother called home for most of her life.
“How can one do that to anybody? The police revealed she was stabbed 11 times.”

Mireille Knoll was killed Friday in her apartment, which was then set on fire. On Tuesday, prosecutors filed preliminary charges against two people for murder with anti-Semitic motives, including a neighbor Knoll hosted regularly, to lessen her loneliness.
View of the apartment door of Mireille Knoll, 85, who was was slain last week, in Paris, France, Tuesday, March 27, 2018. Police seals, hearts and a photo of her are pasted on her entry way. Knoll had been stabbed several times and her apartment set on fire. Two suspects have been given preliminary charges of murder with anti-Semitic motives over the death of an elderly Jewish woman, a French judicial official said Tuesday.
As Knoll’s family gathered in Paris to attend her funeral on Wednesday, horrified French leaders and activists called for people to take to the streets to protest racism.
Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo urged all Parisians to join a silent march in memory of Knoll on Wednesday, and politicians across the political spectrum pledged to attend. French President Emmanuel Macron tweeted his “absolute determination to fight against anti-Semitism.”
For Knoll’s family, the killing was a cruel coda to her long life.
At age 9, she fled Paris to escape a notorious World War II roundup of Paris Jews. French police herded some 13,000 people — including more than 4,000 children — into the Vel d’Hiv stadium in 1942 and shipped them to the Auschwitz death camp in Nazi-occupied Poland. Fewer than 100 survived.
A family member with Brazilian citizenship helped Knoll and other relatives escape Nazi-occupied territory for southern Europe and then Canada. She returned to France only after the end of the war.
Over the years her grandchildren and other French Jews moved to Israel, but Knoll stayed in her beloved Paris, living nearly her whole life in the modest apartment on Avenue Philippe Auguste.
“There was nothing to steal. My mother was poor,” her son said. “Her credit card? She would have only been able to withdraw 100 euros. She had no money on her account.”
Authorities have not released the names of the two men in custody but have said the chief suspect is a 29-year-old with a past conviction who lived in the same building.
Daniel Knoll said the suspect had lived there since he was 7.
“My mother had a thirst for knowledge and meeting new people and talking to them and that’s what killed her,” he said.
On Tuesday, a photo of Knoll hung on her door, surrounded by paper hearts and a police notice saying the apartment was the subject of a judicial inquiry.
On a gate outside the building in eastern Paris, neighbors hung up a tribute poster. Candles flickered next to piles of flowers in her honor.
Smoke residue from the fire still stained her apartment window.
Knoll’s granddaughter, Jessica, lashed out at the attackers who “burned all of our memories, burned my entire childhood that I experienced there, in photos, albums, souvenirs.”
Speaking Tuesday in Herzliya in central Israel, Jessica Knoll stroked a ring her grandmother gave her on her last visit to Paris, and remembered her irrepressible energy.
“She used to run faster than us,” she told the AP.
Daniel Knoll remembered his mother as talkative and vivacious. In a home video she could be seen raising a glass and declaring, “Lechaim!” — “to life!” in Hebrew.
When she could still walk, he said, “she was going to restaurants, to theaters, to cinemas to see movies. She likes so much to read, she likes life so much. All those people who know war, they like life, maybe more than these crazy people” who killed her.
Mireille Knoll’s husband was deported to Nazi concentration camps, and their wartime experiences colored their children’s lives.
Yet, despite a resurgence of anti-Semitic violence and vandalism in recent years, and anti-Israeli sentiment among many young French Muslims, Daniel Knoll said he didn’t feel targeted for being Jewish.
Granddaughter Jessica, however, warned that “today it is my grandmother and tomorrow it will be a grandmother, a grandchild, someone else’s father.”
Jessica Knoll, who emigrated to Israel as a child 20 years ago, urged the French to “stop making excuses and see reality for what it is.”
The French Jewish group CRIF compared Knoll’s killing to that of Sarah Halimi, 65, who was beaten and thrown from her balcony last April. That murder was reclassified as anti-Semitic last month. The suspect is in a psychiatric hospital.
France’s government presented a plan earlier this month to fight racism and anti-Semitism, focusing on social media and prevention in schools. It also wants to change French law to force internet platforms to detect and remove illegal content.
An annual national count of racist, anti-Semitic, anti-Muslim and anti-Christian acts — most involving threats — dipped in 2017 compared with the year before. But anti-Semitic violence increased by 26 percent, and criminal damage to Jewish places of worship and burial by 22 percent.

Article from Washington post online



 

Seven people including two British tourists were wounded Sunday in Paris after they were attacked by a man armed with a knife and an iron bar.
The attacker was an Afghan national who was arrested.
"Nothing at this stage shows signs of a terrorist nature in these assaults," policesources said, adding that the attacker had targeted "strangers in the street."
Of the seven wounded, four are in a critical condition.
It was not immediately clear if the attacker was among one of the injured.
The incident took place just after 11 p.m. local time (2100 GMT) on the banks of a canal in the northeast of the capital.
A security guard at one of two cinemas on either side of the Canal de l'Ourcq said he saw a man who had already assaulted people being chased by two other men who tried to stop him.
"He had an iron bar in his hand which he threw at the men chasing him, then he took out a knife," he told AFP.
A police investigation has been launched for attempted murder, according to a judicial source.

12-12-18

Strassbourg/Straatsburg,


French police organized a large manhunt for the man who attacked visitors tuesday the 11th at 22.00 at the x-mas market.
A terrorist opened fire on the people visiting the market, killing 3 and wounding 13 of which 5 are in bad condition, of those 5 two have died bringing the number to 5 killed.
Among the dead is a man (45) a tourist from Thailand, his wife is among the injured.
The shooter ( 29 year Cheriff Chekatt) is still on the run.
He is known with the French police and has a large crime history with 20 known confictions including armed robberies.

In total there have been 3 incidents, two firefights with policemen and the attack on the market.
The terrorist was hit in one of those engagements but somehow managed to escape.

In the mean time 100 s of policemen have set up roadblocks and border security has been tightened.
There was a search near the kathedrale in Strassbourg. 5 people have been arrested who are known to have ties to the terrorist.
All other x-mas markets have more security, police is searching through the city.
All other public events like a demonstration are cancelled.
The threat level in France is now at the highest level, long live the religion of peace.

On the day of the attack the police raided his house searching for evidence on a case of manslaughter.
Reports confirmed he was on the terrorist list, together with over 20.000 others.
However he still managed to do the terrorist attack.

Its going to be a dark xmas again......