© Eric Gaillard/ReutersSecurity forces guard area after a reported knife attack at Notre Dame church in Nice, France, October 29, 2020
A woman was decapitated and two other people killed during a knife attack Thursday at a church in France that authorities are investigating as a terrorist attack.
The
attack occurred near the Basilica of Notre-Dame in Nice, a city on France's southern coast.
"The suspected knife attacker was shot by police while being detained, he is on his way to hospital, he is alive," Mayor Christian Estrosi said, adding that the "terrorist"
shouted "Allahu akbar," which is Arabic for "God is great," as police arrested him.
"The meaning of his gesture left no doubt," Estrosi said. The woman who was "decapitated" and at least one of the other victims who died "in a horrible way" were inside the church, the mayor said.
Two other attacks occurred in France on Thursday.
A Saudi man was arrested after he attacked a guard with a sharp tool at the French consulate in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, according to Saudi state media. The guard was hospitalized and suffered minor injuries.
Comment: The murderer has been
identified as Brahim A., a 21-year-old of Tunisian descent. The victims
include "a 30-year old mother, a 45-year-old member of the sacristan who had his throat slit, and a 70-year-old woman who was decapitated." Nice's first deputy mayor
told RT that two, not one, of the victims were beheaded: the sacristan in addition to the elderly woman. Tunisia has launched its own
investigation into the killer:
Tunisian media reported that the suspect is from the northeastern city of Bouhajla and illegally entered into France from Italy earlier this month.
An inquiry has now been launched by the Public Prosecutor of the Judicial Pole for Combating Terrorism in Tunisia, judiciary official Mohsen Dali confirmed.
He said the office had "opened a forensic investigation into the suspicion that a Tunisian committed a terrorist operation abroad."
Senior priest Gil Florini of Nice Center parish said that parishes had been
warned there could be attacks.
Also today, in Lyon, police
arrested an Afghan national carrying a 30cm knife while attempting to board a streetcar. ALSO today, in Sartrouville, another man in possession of a knife was
arrested. The man's father reportedly called the police to warn them his son was planning a copycat attack. Police beat him to the church and apprehended him.
France has raised its national terror alert system to
maximum,
nicely coinciding with the decision to plunge France back into lockdown. Macron has
ordered troops to patrol churches and schools.
Ankara offered its
condolences (this comes after the recent back and forth between Macron and Erdogan over the Mohammed cartoons):
The Turkish Foreign Ministry said the country stands in solidarity with the French people against terrorism and violence.
"There is no excuse to take someone's life that would legitimize violence. It is clear that the ones who commit such a violent act in a holy place have no respect for any humanitarian, religious, or moral values."
Turkish Presidential spokesperson Ibrahim Kalin also condemned what he described as a "heinous terrorist attack," and said his country offered its "condolences to the French people."
Trump tweeted:
UPDATES: Footage of the police operation yesterday, with sounds of gunshots as the attacker, now identified as Brahim Aouissaoui, was apprehended:
RT has a rundown of the
timeline. Before the attack, Aouissaoui had only been in France for a period of weeks.
Early on Thursday morning, an assailant armed with a knife entered the Basilica of Notre-Dame - Nice's main Catholic church - and began a stabbing spree that lasted nearly 30 minutes, according to France's National Anti-Terrorist Prosecutor Jean-Francois Ricard.
The attack left three victims dead, including a 60-year-old woman found at the entrance of the church with a "very deep throat cut, like a decapitation," as well as a 55-year-old man - the officiator of the worship service - who also died of a significant throat wound. A third female victim, 44, managed to escape the church after sustaining several stab wounds, but later succumbed to her injuries in a nearby restaurant.
A team of four police officers engaged and "neutralized" the suspect as he advanced toward them in a "threatening manner." The officers first tried to subdue him with a stun gun but were forced to resort to their service weapons, with 14 bullet casings found at the scene. The attacker was injured and taken to a hospital, where he remains in serious condition.
French authorities have identified the attacker as Brahim Aouissaoui, a 21-year-old Tunisian national believed to have entered Italy on September 20, through the island of Lampedusa, where he spent two weeks in quarantine.
Aouissaoui, who wasn't previously known to French anti-terrorist authorities, arrived in Paris on October 9, apparently carrying an Italian Red Cross identity document. He traveled to Nice by train on Thursday morning, changed his clothes at the station, and walked directly into the cathedral.
Police have
arrested a 47-year-old man believed to have been in contact with Aouissaoui the day before the murders.
Austria's ex-foreign minister
told RT that Macron's crackdown may be supported by many French, but "it could have been done in a little more conciliatory way because there are six million Muslims living in France. ... What France needs right now is much more a social cohesion, a sort of reconciliation... but here I observe that things have been going in a more polarizing way."
France's interior minister, by contrast, is on the
war path:
"We are in a war against an enemy that is both inside and outside," Darmanin told RTL radio on Friday. He said that France must brace for further tragedy as it fights against "Islamist ideology."
"We need to understand that there have been and there will be other events such as these terrible attacks," the interior minister warned. He said that 4,000 security personnel would be stationed at places of worship across France over the weekend.
The foreign minister
warned that French citizens face a security threat "everywhere" while trying to insist that France is a "country of tolerance."
Right-wing identitarians held a march and vigil outside the church.
Russian Muslims protested outside the French embassy in Moscow:
Dozens of Muslims joined the action, shouting 'Allahu akbar' and carrying photos of Macron with a footprint on his face. A similar picture was earlier reposted on Instagram by Russian MMA champion, Khabib Nurmagomedov, who called the French president "scum" for his views.
A caricature depicting Macron as the devil, which was first published in an Iranian paper, was also on display. Several photos of the French leader were torched during the protest.
At one point, the demonstrators were filmed engaged in a shoving match with police.
At least 10 people ended up being detained, according to RIA Novosti news agency.
Tunisia has launched a
probe into whether or not the 'Mahdi Organization' which allegedly claimed responsibility for the attack actually exists:
His family in Tunisia, however, insists that Aouissaoui showed no signs of extremism. In an interview with Reuters, his sister said that he had come to the church on Thursday morning soon after arriving in Nice and was planning on sleeping nearby. In a video call with his family, Aouissaoui reportedly said that he planned to sleep in a building opposite the church.
The entire family is now under investigation, and their phones have been confiscated by Tunisian security officials, Aouissaoui said.
Aouissaoui had been arrested for
knife violence in Tunisia in 2016.
Comment: It is clear Harris has no viable concept of governance, nor a mastery of what American rights guarantee each and every citizen. By her definition, we will all be vice president - or she will not.