New Age Islam News Bureau
29
October 2020
People step on a poster of
French President Emmanuel Macron as they arrive to a rally marking the birthday
of Prophet Muhammad in Sanaa, Yemen October 29, 2020. REUTERS/Khaled Abdullah
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The Suspect
Kept Repeating Allah u Akbar: Deadly Knife Attack in Nice Is Terrorism, French
Officials Say
France
Attack: Deadly Stabbing In Nice 'Is Terrorism', Says Mayor
Kremlin,
After French Attacks, Says Wrong To Kill But Wrong To Insult Religion Too
France Church
Attack: What We Know And What We Don't
Knife
Attacker In French City Of Nice Shouted 'Allahu Akbar': Mayor
Knife Attack
In French City Nice Leaves Three Dead
France Raises
Its Alert Level To Maximum After Nice Attack
Knife-Wielding
Man Shouts 'Allahu Akbar' Before Killing Three In Nice; Factcheck On Deadly
Attacks In France
Woman
Beheaded As 3 Killed At France Church, Mayor Says Terror Attack
Three Dead As
Woman Beheaded In Knife Attack At French Church
Killings In
Nice, France: The Attack Comes While France Is Still Reeling From The Beheading
Of French Teacher Samuel Paty By A Man Of Chechen Origin
Man Arrested
In Saudi Arabia After Alleged Knife Attack At French Consulate
Compiled by New Age Islam News Bureau
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The Suspect Kept Repeating Allah u Akbar: Deadly Knife Attack in Nice Is Terrorism, French Officials Say
By Constant
Méheut and Aurelien Breeden
Oct. 29, 2020\
People step on a poster of
French President Emmanuel Macron as they arrive to a rally marking the birthday
of Prophet Muhammad in Sanaa, Yemen October 29, 2020. REUTERS/Khaled Abdullah
-----
PARIS — Less
than two weeks after the beheading of a French schoolteacher, an assailant
carrying a knife entered the towering gothic basilica in the southern city of
Nice early Thursday and killed three people, further inflaming tensions in a
county already on edge and leading authorities to increase the terror threat
level.
Officials in
Nice described the attack as Islamist terrorism, and it was quickly followed by
two similar events — including a knife-wielding assailant outside a French
Consulate in Saudi Arabia — though it was not immediately clear whether the
events were coordinated.
The mayor of
Nice, Christian Estrosi, told reporters on Thursday that a suspect, who has not
been identified, was arrested after being shot and wounded by the police. The
suspect “kept repeating Allahu akbar in front of us even though he was
sedated,” Mr. Estrosi said, adding this left “no doubt” as to the motivation
behind the attack.
Prime
Minister Jean Castex quickly announced that authorities were placing the
country on its highest terrorism threat level, with heightened security at
places of worship, and he said the response to the attack would be “firm and
relentless.”
“This attack,
which is as craven as it is barbaric, plunges the entire country into
mourning,” Mr. Castex told lawmakers in Paris.
The killings
in Nice come at an extremely sensitive time for France, which is still shaken
by the beheading of the teacher, Samuel Paty, and is about to enter a monthlong
lockdown because of the coronavirus.
Since Mr.
Paty’s killing in a Paris suburb by a young Muslim man, the French authorities
have undertaken a broad crackdown against what they characterized as Muslim
extremists in France, conducting dozens of raids, temporarily closing a major
mosque and disbanding a Muslim aid group that authorities accuse of “advocating
radical Islam” and hate speech.
Those
measures have found widespread support in a nation still traumatized by Islamic
State-inspired terrorist attacks in recent years — including two that killed a
total of more than 200 people.
But President
Emmanuel Macron’s vow that France would protect the right to caricature the
Prophet Muhammad have drawn harsh criticism in the Muslim world. And the tone
of some of Mr. Macron’s ministers — one of them said he objected to kosher or
halal aisles in supermarkets — has left France’s Muslim population of about 6
million people feeling increasingly alienated.
While it is
not yet clear whether Thursday’s attack was carried out in response to the
government’s measures, they immediately fortified calls among the French
authorities for even tougher efforts to combat Islamist extremism in ways
almost certain to deepen the polarization of the country.
“There is a
woman who quite clearly was attacked with the same modus operandi as Samuel
Paty,” the Nice mayor, Mr. Estrosi, told BFM TV, referring to the teacher who
was killed by a young Muslim in mid-October after showing caricatures of the
Prophet Muhammad in a class.
“Enough is
enough,” Mr. Estrosi said. “It is now time for France to exempt itself of
peacetime laws to permanently annihilate Islamo-facism from our territory.”
President
Emmanuel Macron himself has vowed to crack down on what he called “Islamist
separatism” with a range of measures aimed at countering extremism within the
Muslim community.
The measures
include placing stringent limits on home-schooling and increasing scrutiny of
religious schools, making associations that solicit public funds sign a
“charter” on secularism, and phasing out the widespread practice of bringing
over foreign imams to work in France while investing in home-based training of
imams.
After the
attack in Nice, at the city’s largest church, Notre-Dame de L’Assomption,
France’s antiterrorism prosecutor said that the office had opened an
investigation into terrorism-related offenses.
Two of the
victims were killed in the church itself, while a third died after taking
refuge in a nearby bar, the mayor said.
Not long
after, in Avignon, a man with a handgun who threatened bystanders was shot and
killed by police officers, according to local news reports, though it was not
clear that the incident was terrorism related. And at the French Consulate in
the Saudi city of Jeddah, a suspect was quickly arrested after a separate knife
attack that wounded a security guard, who was hospitalized.
In recent
years, France has experienced several attacks like those carried out on
Thursday. The country faced a string of mass casualty attacks in 2015 and 2016
by organized networks, but the most recent assaults have more often been
isolated acts carried out by lone assailants living in France, something that
can be harder to prevent.
None of the
assailants in two previous attacks this fall, including a stabbing in September
near the former offices of Charlie Hebdo — the satirical newspaper that printed
caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad — were known to the authorities.
In 2016, Nice
was traumatized by one of France’s worst terrorist attacks, when a man plowed a
19-ton refrigeration truck into crowds that had gathered on the city’s main
seaside promenade to watch fireworks, killing 86.
The police
warned residents to stay away from the area around the church on Thursday as a
“very serious” event was underway and controlled explosives were being used to
clear the church of any suspicious packages. They also urged residents to
remain calm. Videos posted to social media showed lines of people filing out of
the area around the church as police evacuated the scene.
Lawmakers who
were present at the National Assembly, the lower house of the French
Parliament, observed a minute of silence on Thursday morning after hearing news
of the attack.
The attack
came just hours before France is scheduled to go back on a one-month lockdown
because of the coronavirus pandemic, which has flared dangerously around Europe
over the past weeks with a surge of cases and hospitalizations.
“I can only,
once again in the very difficult circumstances that our country is going
through, in the challenges it is undergoing, call on the entire national
representation to unity and cohesion,” Jean Castex, the prime minister, told
lawmakers.
France’s
interior minister, Gérald Darmanin, said in a post on Twitter that he had
immediately convened a crisis meeting. Mr. Macron, who joined the meeting, is
expected in Nice later on Thursday.
Officials did
not identify the victims, but Mr. Estrosi said one was the sacristan of the
church. The Bishop’s Conference of France said in a statement that the victims
were a “symbol” who had been targeted merely because they were in the basilica.
“Despite the
pain that grips them, Catholics refuse to give in to fear and, with all of the
nation, want to face this treacherous and blind threat,” the statement said.
It was not
the first time a church was targeted by an attack. In 2016, the Rev. Jacques
Hamel, an 85-year-old priest, was celebrating Mass in Normandy when two men
with knives entered his small church and slit his throat. And a man is currently
on trial in France for a failed plot to attack a church in Villejuif, a
Parisian church, that left one woman dead.
Politicians
from across the political the political spectrum condemned the attack, as well
as French Muslim representatives.
Mohammed
Moussaoui, the president of the French Council of Muslim Faith, asked French
Muslims on Twitter to cancel all Mawlid festivities, which celebrate the
birthday of the Prophet Muhammad, “as a sign of mourning and solidarity with
the victims and their loved ones.”
Megan Specia
contributed reporting from London.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/29/world/europe/nice-attack-france.html
--------
France Attack:
Deadly Stabbing In Nice 'Is Terrorism', Says Mayor
29-10-2020
Three people
have been killed in a knife attack at a church in the French city of Nice,
police say.
Nice Mayor
Christian Estrosi said there had been a "terrorist attack at the heart of
the Notre-Dame basilica".
One elderly
victim who had come to pray was "virtually beheaded". A suspect was
shot and detained shortly afterwards.
Mr Estrosi
spoke of "Islamo-fascism" and said the suspect had "repeated
endlessly 'Allahu Akbar' (God is greatest)."
President
Emmanuel Macron is on his way to the scene. Anti-terror prosecutors have opened
a murder inquiry and France raised its national security alert system to its
highest level.
Mr Estrosi
compared the attack to the recent murder of teacher Samuel Paty, who was
beheaded close to his school outside Paris earlier this month.
Police have
not suggested a motive for the attack in Nice. However, it follows days of
protests in some Muslim-majority countries triggered by President Macron's
defence of the publication of cartoons that depicted the Prophet Mohammed.
There have been calls in some countries for a boycott of French goods.
Meanwhile,
two further attacks took place on Thursday morning, one in France and one in
Saudi Arabia.
A man was
shot dead in Montfavet near Avignon after threatening police with a handgun.
And a guard was attacked outside the French consulate in Jeddah in Saudi
Arabia. A suspect was arrested and the guard taken to hospital.
What is known
about the attack in Nice?
Two of those
who died were attacked inside the church, the elderly woman and a man who was
found with his throat cut, reports said.
A woman
managed to flee to a nearby cafe after being stabbed several times, but died
later.
It later
emerged that a witness had managed to raise the alarm with a special protection
system set up by the city.
Chloe, a
witness who lives near the church, told the BBC: "We heard many people
shouting in the street. We saw from the window that there were many, many
policemen coming, and gunshots, many gunshots."
Tom Vannier,
a journalism student who arrived at the scene just after the attack, told the
BBC that people were crying on the street.
Four years
ago Nice was the scene of another terror attack, when a Tunisian drove a truck
into crowds celebrating Bastille Day on 14 July, killing 86 people.
Disorientated
and frightened
The terrorist
threat level in France is as high now as it was in 2015-16, the terrible days
of Charlie Hebdo, Bataclan, the Nice lorry-killer and the murder of Father
Hamel in his church in Rouen. Things were bad enough then - and many more
people died in those attacks. So why does this outbreak of Islamist violence
feel somehow more scary?
One reason
must be the symbolism of the Samuel Paty beheading. That a simple history
teacher could be murdered - and not randomly but actually selected for murder -
has been deeply unsettling for French people. Likewise the targeting today of
Christian worshippers in Nice.
But it is
also the context: the instant logic of action-response that followed President
Macron's robust defence of secularism at Samuel Paty's memorial 10 days ago.
All it took was a speech, then there were the threats, then there were the
deaths.
With a new
Covid lockdown providing an eerie backdrop to these events, small wonder the
French are feeling disoriented and frightened.
Grey line
What has the
reaction been?
A minute's
silence was held in the National Assembly, where Prime Minister Jean Castex had
just been giving details of the Covid-19 lockdown measures coming into force on
Thursday night.
Announcing
the raising of the "vigipirate" national security alert system to its
highest level, Mr Castex said the Nice attack was "as cowardly as it is
barbaric".
The French
Council of the Muslim Faith condemned the knife attack and spoke of its
solidarity with the victims and their families.
British Prime
Minister Boris Johnson, tweeting in English and French, said the UK stood
"steadfastly" with France.
Presentational
white space
Turkey, which
has seen ties with France sour in recent days over remarks by Mr Macron,
strongly condemned the "savage" knife attack.
Vatican
spokesman Matteo Bruni said the killings had "brought death to a place of
love and consolation".
He said Pope
Francis had been informed of the situation and was "close to the mourning
Catholic community".
What's the
context?
Thursday's
attack has echoes of another attack earlier this month near a school north-west
of Paris. Samuel Paty, who was a teacher in Conflans-Sainte-Honorine, was
beheaded days after showing controversial cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad to
some of his pupils.
The murder
has heightened tensions in France and the government's attempt to crack down on
radical Islam has angered Turkey and other countries.
Turkish
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was among those calling for a boycott of French
goods.
The situation
worsened after a cartoon on Mr Erdogan appeared in the satirical magazine
Charlie Hebdo.
A timeline of
recent attacks in France
October 2020:
French teacher Samuel Paty is beheaded outside a school in a suburb of Paris
September
2020: Two people are stabbed and seriously hurt in Paris near the former
offices of Charlie Hebdo, where Islamist militants carried out a deadly attack
in 2015
July 2016:
Two attackers kill a priest, Jacques Hamel, and seriously wound another hostage
after storming a church in a suburb of Rouen in northern France
July 2016: A
gunman drives a large lorry into a crowd celebrating Bastille Day in Nice,
killing 86 people in an attack claimed by the Islamic State (IS) group
November
2015: Gunmen and suicide bombers launch multiple co-ordinated attacks on the
Bataclan concert hall, a major stadium, restaurants and bars in Paris, leaving
130 people dead and hundreds wounded
January 2015:
Two Islamist militant gunmen force their way into Charlie Hebdo's offices and
shoot dead 12 people
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-54729957
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Kremlin,
After French Attacks, Says Wrong To Kill But Wrong To Insult Religion Too
Oct 29, 2020
MOSCOW: The
Kremlin, commenting on recent beheading incidents in France, said on Thursday
it was unacceptable to kill people, but also wrong to insult the feelings of
religious believers.
The Kremlin
was commenting after a knife-wielding attacker shouting "Allahu
Akbar" beheaded a woman and killed two other people in a suspected
terrorist attack at a church in the French city of Nice.
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/europe/kremlin-after-french-attacks-says-wrong-to-kill-but-wrong-to-insult-religion-too/articleshow/78930870.cms
--------
France Church
Attack: What We Know And What We Don't
Oct 29, 2020
NEW DELHI: A
woman was beheaded by an attacker with a knife who also killed two other people
at a church in the French city of Nice on Thursday, police said, in an incident
the city's mayor described as "terrorism".
Mayor
Christian Estrosi said on Twitter the knife attack had happened in or near the
city's Notre Dame church and that police had detained the attacker.
Within hours
of the Nice attack, police killed a man who had threatened passersby with a
handgun in Montfavet, near the southern French city of Avignon.
What we know
so far about the attack:
* French
anti-terrorism prosecutors are investigating the knife attack at the church in
the Mediterranean city of Nice.
* The
assailant was arrested after the Thursday morning attack at the Notre Dame
Church and taken to a nearby hospital after being injured during his arrest, a
police official said.
* He was
believed to be acting alone and police are not searching for other assailants,
the official said. The anti-terrorism prosecutor's office said an investigation
was opened into an attack with a terrorist connection.
* Nice Mayor
Christian Estrosi said the attacker shouted "Allahu Akbar!" repeatedly
as police apprehended him and that "the meaning of his gesture left no
doubt."
* France has
raised the security alert for French territory to the highest level after the
knife attack. Castex also told French National Assembly that the government's response
to the attack would be firm and implacable.
* It was not
immediately clear if Thursday's attack was connected to the cartoons, which
Muslims consider to be blasphemous.
* One of the
people killed inside the church was believed to be the church warden, Estrosi
said.
* Images on
French media showed the neighborhood locked down and surrounded by police and
emergency vehicles. Police armed with automatic weapons had put up a security
cordon around the church, which is on Nice's Jean Medecin avenue, the city's
main shopping thoroughfare. Ambulances and fire service vehicles were also at
the scene.
* The lower
house of parliament suspended a debate on new virus restrictions and held a
moment of silence Thursday for the victims.
* 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 Muhammed
"as a sign of mourning and in solidarity with the victims and their loved
ones."
* The exact
motive of the attack was unclear but comes as France is under alert for Islamic
extremist acts amid tensions over caricatures of the Muslim Prophet Muhammad
published by satirical French weekly Charlie Hebdo, and after two other recent
attacks in France with links to the cartoons.
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/europe/france-church-attack-what-we-know-and-what-we-dont/articleshow/78929988.cms
--------
Knife Attacker
In French City Of Nice Shouted 'Allahu Akbar': Mayor
Oct 29, 2020
PARIS: The
man suspected of carrying out a fatal knife attack at a church in the southern
French city of Nice kept shouting "Allahu Akbar" (God is Greatest)
even after he had been arrested by police, Nice Mayor Christian Estrosi told
reporters.
Meanwhile,
France's anti-terrorist body said it was looking into the fatal knife attack
that took place on Thursday morning.
A police
source said a woman was decapitated. French politician Marine Le Pen also spoke
of a decapitation having occurred in the attack.
The French
anti-terrorist prosecutor's department said it had been asked to investigate
the attack.
The attack
comes while France is still reeling from the beheading earlier this month of
French middle school teacher Samuel Paty in Paris by a man of Chechen origin.
The attacker
had said he wanted to punish Paty for showing pupils cartoons of the Prophet
Mohammad in a civics lesson.
Since Paty's
killing, French officials - backed by many ordinary citizens - have re-asserted
the right to display the cartoons, and the images have been widely displayed at
marches in solidarity with the killed teacher.
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/europe/knife-attacker-in-french-city-of-nice-shouted-allahu-akbar-mayor/articleshow/78929579.cms
--------
Knife Attack
In French City Nice Leaves Three Dead
29 Oct 2020
An attacker
with a knife killed at least three people at a church in the French city of
Nice on Thursday, officials said, in an incident the city’s mayor described as
“terrorism”.
Mayor
Christian Estrosi, a former MP with the right-wing Republicans party, said on
Twitter that police had detained the attacker after shooting him.
Estrosi
tweeted: “I can confirm everything suggests this was a terror attack in the
Notre-Dame Basilica,” in central Nice.
He claimed
that two women and one man were dead. One woman took refuge in a nearby bar
where she succumbed to her injuries. The other was killed in the most
“horrible” way, he said, “like the professor” – an apparent reference to the
recent attack on French teacher Samuel Paty, who was beheaded in broad
daylight.
Later, in a
separate development, police killed a suspect in the southern French city
Avignon who they said had threatened passersby with a handgun.
In a third
development on Thursday, amid growing tensions between France and the Muslim
world, Saudi state-run media said a man was detained after he stabbed and
slightly wounded guard at the French Consulate in Jeddah.
President
Emmanuel Macron was heading to the city, while Interior Minister Gerald
Darmanin held a crisis meeting as he warned people to avoid the site of the
attack.
A
representative of the French Council for the Muslim Faith condemned the attack.
“As a sign of
mourning and solidarity with the victims and their loved ones, I call on all
Muslims in France to cancel all the celebrations of the holiday of Mawlid,” the
spokesman said.
The holiday
is the birthday of the Prophet Mohammad, which is being celebrated Thursday.
Officials
across the political spectrum offered their sympathies.
Jean-Luc
Melenchon, leader of the left-wing France Insoumise party, tweeted: “Thoughts
of compassion for the victims of the attack in #Nice.”
Anne Hidalgo,
the left-wing mayor of Paris, said: “My first thoughts go to the victims and
their loved ones affected by this horrible attack. The people of Nice, as well
as it’s mayor @cestrosi, can count on support from the city of Paris.”
But Marine Le
Pen, a leading far-right figure, adopted a provocative tone, calling for the
“eradication of Islamism from our soil”.
The
anti-terrorism prosecutor’s office said an investigation had been opened into
an attack with a terrorist connection.
Meanwhile,
the lower house of parliament suspended a debate on new coronavirus
restrictions – the country will go into a fresh lockdown on Friday, and held a
moment of silence for the victims.
Thursday’s
attack comes while France is still reeling from the killing of Paty, by a man
of Chechen origin.
The attacker
had said he wanted to punish Paty for showing pupils caricatures of the Prophet
Muhammad in a civics lesson.
In a comment
on recent beheadings in France, the Kremlin said on Thursday it was
unacceptable to kill people, but also wrong to insult the feelings of religious
believers.
It was not
immediately clear what the motive was for the Nice attack, or if there was any
connection to the cartoons, which Muslims consider deeply offensive.
Since Paty’s
killing, French officials – backed by many citizens – have re-asserted the
right to display the cartoons, and the images have been widely displayed at
marches in solidarity with the slain teacher.
That has
prompted an outpouring of anger in parts of the Muslim world, with some
governments accusing French leader Emmanuel Macron of pursuing an anti-Islam
agenda. Muslims deeply revere the Prophet and find the caricatures, which often
link Islam to “terrorism”, offensive.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/10/29/knife-attack-in-french-city-nice-leaves-one-dead-several-hurt
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France Raises
Its Alert Level To Maximum After Nice Attack
By LORI
HINNANT
October 29,
2020
PARIS (AP) —
France’s prime minister says the country is going on emergency alert after the
killings of three people at the Notre Dame Basilica in the southern city of
Nice.
A man armed
with a knife attacked two women and a man at the church Thursday morning before
he was shot by police. As he lay wounded, the Nice mayor said the attacker
repeated “Allah Akbar!” over and over. French authorities have opened a
terrorism investigation.
Prime
Minister Jean Castex told French lawmakers that the country would raise its
alert level to “emergency” in response to the attack, which comes during high
tensions over the re-publication of caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad by the
satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo. The caricatures have ignited Muslim anger
around the world.
Castex’s
announcement came hours before France was to go into a one-month coronavirus
lockdown.
Thursday’s
attack was the third since a terrorism trial opened in the January 2015 attacks
against Charlie Hebdo and a kosher supermarket.
THIS IS A
BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. AP’s earlier story follows below.
PARIS (AP) —
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 Thursday in the southern city of
Avignon and in the Saudi city of Jiddah, 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 not 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 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 Jiddah, 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.
The attack
came less than two weeks after another assailant decapitated a French middle
school teacher who showed the caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad for a class
on free speech. Those caricatures were published by Charlie Hebdo and cited by
the men who gunned down the newspaper’s editorial meeting in 2015.
In September,
a man who had sought asylum in France attacked bystanders outside Charlie
Hebdo’s former offices with a butcher knife.
https://apnews.com/article/international-news-shootings-france-arrests-terrorist-attacks-155dc69a8c360ea6ed72280b8188f8ab
--------
Knife-Wielding
Man Shouts 'Allahu Akbar' Before Killing Three In Nice; Factcheck On Deadly
Attacks In France
Edited By:
Ananya Das
October 29,
2020
In yet
another shocking and brutal attack in France, a knife-wielding man shouting
"Allahu Akbar" beheaded a woman and killed two other people in a
suspected terrorist attack at a church in Nice on Thursday, police and
officials said.
Police said
three people were confirmed to have died in the attack and several were injured.
A police source said a woman was decapitated. French politician Marine Le Pen
also spoke of a decapitation having occurred in the attack.
Attacker kept
saying 'Allahu Akbar': Nice`s mayor, Christian Estrosi, who described the
attack as terrorism, said on Twitter it had happened in or near the city`s
Notre Dame church and that police had detained the attacker. Estrosi said the
attacker had shouted the phrase "Allahu Akbar", or God is greatest.
One of the people killed inside the church was believed to be the churchwarden,
Estrosi said. "The attacker kept shouting "Allahu Akbar" even
after he had been detained, Estrosi said.
https://zeenews.india.com/world/knife-wielding-man-shouts-allahu-akbar-before-killing-three-in-nice-factcheck-on-deadly-attacks-in-france-2320962.html
--------
Woman
Beheaded As 3 Killed At France Church, Mayor Says Terror Attack
October 29,
2020
Nice: A
knife-wielding attacker shouting "Allahu Akbar" beheaded a woman and
killed two other people in a suspected terrorist incident at a church in the
French city of Nice on Thursday, police and officials said.
Nice's mayor,
Christian Estrosi, who described the attack as terrorism, said on Twitter it
had happened in or near the city's Notre Dame church.
Estrosi said
the attacker had repeatedly shouted the phrase "Allahu Akbar", or God
is greatest, even after he had been detained by police.
One of the
people killed inside the church was believed to be the church warden, Estrosi
said, adding that a woman had tried to escape from inside the church and had
fled into a bar opposite the building.
"The suspected knife attacker was shot by police while being detained, he
is on his way to hospital, he is alive," Estrosi told reporters.
"Enough
is enough," Estrosi said. "It's time now for France to exonerate
itself from the laws of peace in order to definitively wipe out Islamo-fascism
from our territory."
Reuters
journalists at the scene said police armed with automatic weapons had put up a
security cordon around the church, which is on Nice's Jean Medecin avenue, the
city's main shopping thoroughfare. Ambulances and fire service vehicles were
also at the scene.
SOLIDARITY
French
President Emmanuel Macron is due to visit Nice, Estrosi said.
In Paris,
lawmakers in the National Assembly observed a minute's silence in solidarity
with the victims.
Police said
three people were confirmed to have died in the attack and several were
injured. The French anti-terrorist prosecutor's department said it had been
asked to investigate.
A police
source said a woman was decapitated. French politician Marine Le Pen also spoke
of a decapitation having occurred in the attack.
Estrosi said
the victims had been killed in a "horrible way".
"The
methods match, without doubt, those used against the brave teacher in Conflans
Sainte Honorine, Samuel Paty," he said, referring to a French teacher
beheaded earlier this month in an attack in a suburb of Paris.
The attack
comes while France is still reeling from the beheading earlier this month of
middle school teacher Paty by a man of Chechen origin.
The attacker
had said he wanted to punish Paty for showing pupils cartoons of the Prophet
Mohammad in a civics lesson.
It was not
immediately clear if Thursday's attack was connected to the cartoons, which Muslims
consider to be blasphemous.
Since Paty's
killing, French officials - backed by many ordinary citizens - have re-asserted
the right to display the cartoons, and the images have been widely displayed at
marches in solidarity with the killed teacher.
That has
prompted an outpouring of anger in parts of the Muslim world, with some
governments accusing Macron of pursuing an anti-Islam agenda.
https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/two-dead-in-knife-attack-in-french-church-official-says-terrorism-suspected-2317500
--------
Three Dead As
Woman Beheaded In Knife Attack At French Church
OCTOBER 29,
2020
France raises
security threat level to highest, says PM Jean Castex
A
knife-wielding attacker shouting “Allahu Akbar” beheaded a woman and killed two
other people in a suspected terrorist attack at a church in the French city of
Nice on Thursday, police and officials said.
Nice's mayor,
Christian Estrosi, who described the attack as terrorism, said on Twitter it
had happened in or near the city's Notre Dame church and that police had
detained the attacker.
Mr. Estrosi
said the attacker had shouted the phrase “Allahu Akbar”, or 'God is greatest'.
One of the
people killed inside the church was believed to be the church warden, Mr.
Estrosi said. The attacker kept shouting “Allahu Akbar” even after he had been
detained, he added. “The suspected knife attacker was shot by police while
being detained, he is on his way to hospital, he is alive,” Mr. Estrosi told
reporters.
“Enough is
enough,” Mr. Estrosi said. “It's time now for France to exonerate itself from
the laws of peace in order to definitively wipe out Islamo-fascism from our
territory”.
Security
alert raised to highest level
France has
raised the security alert for French territory to the highest level after the
knife attack, Prime Minister Jean Castex said.
Mr. Castex
also told French National Assembly that the government's response to the attack
would be firm and implacable.
Police said
three people were confirmed to have died in the attack and several were
injured.
A police
source said a woman was decapitated. French politician Marine Le Pen also spoke
of a decapitation having occurred in the attack.
Mr. Estrosi
said the victims had been killed in a “horrible way”.
“The methods
match, without doubt, those used against the brave teacher in Conflans Sainte
Honorine, Samuel Paty,” he said, referring to a French teacher beheaded earlier
this month in an attack in a suburb of Paris. Mr. Estrosi said a woman had
tried to escape from inside the church and had fled into a bar opposite the
building.
Terrorism
suspected
The French
anti-terrorist prosecutor's department said it had been asked to investigate
the attack.
Reuters
journalists at the scene said police armed with automatic weapons had put up a
security cordon around the church, which is on Nice's Jean Medecin avenue, the
city's main shopping thoroughfare. Ambulances and fire service vehicles were
also at the scene.
The attack
comes while France is still reeling from the beheading earlier this month of
French middle school teacher Paty by a man of Chechen origin.
The attacker
had said he wanted to punish Paty for showing pupils cartoons of the Prophet
Muhammad in a civics lesson.
It was not
immediately clear if Thursday's attack was connected to the cartoons, which
Muslims consider to be blasphemous.
Since Paty's
killing, French officials — backed by many ordinary citizens — have re-asserted
the right to display the cartoons, and the images have been widely displayed at
marches in solidarity with the killed teacher.
That has
prompted an outpouring of anger in parts of the Muslim world, with some
governments accusing French leader Emmanuel Macron of pursuing an anti-Islam
agenda.
'Britain
stands steadfast with France'
Meanwhile,
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said the country stood steadfast with
France.
“I am
appalled to hear the news from Nice this morning of a barbaric attack at the
Notre-Dame Basilica,” Mr. Johnson said on Twitter in both English and French.
“Our thoughts
are with the victims and their families, and the U.K. stands steadfastly with
France against terror and intolerance.”
https://www.thehindu.com/news/international/three-dead-in-knife-attack-in-french-church/article32971229.ece
--------
Killings In Nice,
France: The Attack Comes While France Is Still Reeling From The Beheading Of French
Teacher Samuel Paty By A Man Of Chechen Origin
By: Express
Web Desk | New Delhi |
October 29,
2020
France: Two
dead in knife attack in Nice church, official says terrorism suspected
Mayor
Christian Estrosi said on Twitter the knife attack had happened in or near the
city’s Notre Dame church and that police had detained the attacker. (Christian
Estrosi/Twitter)
France’s
Prime Minister Jean Castex said the country’s threat level will be raised to
its maximum after an attack near a church killed three people Thursday in Nice.
The city’s mayor described the incident as terrorism.
City Mayor
Christian Estrosi stated on Twitter that the knife attack had happened in or
near the city’s Notre Dame church and that the French authorities had detained
the attacker. A police source informed Reuters that a woman was decapitated.
Meanwhile in
another incident of stabbing in Saudi Arabia,
a Saudi man was arrested in Jeddah after attacking a guard with a “sharp
tool” at the French consulate on Thursday, Reuters quoted Saudi state TV as
saying.
The two
attacks come while France is still reeling from the beheading earlier this
month of French middle school teacher Samuel Paty in Paris by a man of Chechen
origin.
29 OCT 2020
French prime
minister raises attack alert to 'emergency' after church killings in Nice
France's prime
minister Jean Castex says the country's threat level will be raised to its
maximum after an attack near a church killed three people Thursday in Nice.
The move
comes just hours before the country was going into its second coronavirus
lockdown.
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 Thursday in the southern city of
Avignon and in the Saudi city of Jiddah, but it was not immediately clear if
they were linked to the attack in Nice. Sounds of explosions could be heard as
sappers exploded suspicious objects. (AP)
17:52 (IST)
29 OCT 2020
British PM
Boris Johnson expresses solidarity with France
British Prime
Minister Boris Johnson took to Twitter to express his country's solidarity with
the French people. "I am appalled to hear the news from Nice this morning
of a barbaric attack at the Notre-Dame Basilica. Our thoughts are with the
victims and their families, and the UK stands steadfastly with France against
terror and intolerance," stated Johnson.
17:14 (IST)
29 OCT 2020
French
President Emmanuel Macron to visit Nice
French
President Emmanuel Macron will travel to Nice
after participating in a crisis meeting at the Interior Ministry, the
Elysee Palace has said. The country's Prime Minister Jean Castex led lawmakers
in a moment of silence at the National Assembly on Thursday morning news of the incident broke.
17:11 (IST)
29 OCT 2020
Suspected
knife attacker was shot at by police while being detained, on way to hospital:
French Mayor
Nice’s mayor,
Christian Estrosi, who described the attack as terrorism, said on Twitter it
had happened in or near Notre Dame church, the largest in the city. Estrosi
said the attacker had repeatedly shouted the phrase “Allahu Akbar”, or God is
greatest, even after he had been detained by police.
One of the
people killed inside the church was believed to be the church warden, Estrosi
said, adding that a woman had tried to escape from inside the church and had
fled into a bar opposite the 19th century neo-Gothic building.
“The
suspected knife attacker was shot by police while being detained, he is on his
way to hospital, he is alive,” Estrosi told reporters ...Enough is enough...
It’s time now for France to exonerate itself from the laws of peace in order to
definitively wipe out Islamo-fascism from our territory.”
16:53 (IST)
29 OCT 2020
Saudi man
arrested after injuring guard in attack at French consulate in Jeddah
A Saudi man
was arrested in Jeddah after attacking a guard with a “sharp tool” at the
French consulate on Thursday, Reuters quoted Saudi state TV as saying.
This
development comes hours after a woman was beheaded by an attacker with a knife
who also killed two other people at a church in the French city of Nice on
Thursday, in an incident the city’s mayor described as terrorism. READ MORE
People step
on a poster of French President Emmanuel Macron as they arrive to a rally
marking the birthday of Prophet Muhammad in Sanaa, Yemen October 29, 2020.
REUTERS/Khaled Abdullah
Reuters
journalists at the scene said police armed with automatic weapons had put up a
security cordon around the church, which is on Nice’s Jean Medecin avenue, the
city’s main shopping thoroughfare. Ambulances and fire service vehicles were
also at the scene. It was not immediately clear what the motive was for the
Nice attack, or if there was any connection to the cartoons.
Since Paty’s
killing, French officials - backed by many ordinary citizens - have re-asserted
the right to display the cartoons, and the images have been widely displayed at
marches in solidarity with the killed teacher.
That has
prompted an outpouring of anger in parts of the Muslim world, with some
governments accusing French leader Emmanuel Macron of pursuing an anti-Islam
agenda.
(Inputs from
Reuters)
https://indianexpress.com/article/world/france-knife-attack-live-updates-nice-church-terrorism-6908544/
-----
Man Arrested
In Saudi Arabia After Alleged Knife Attack At French Consulate
Michael Safi
29 Oct 2020
Saudi Arabian
police have arrested a man outside the French consulate in Jeddah after he
allegedly stabbed a guard, amid heightened anti-France sentiment across the
Muslim world and apparent terrorist attacks in two French cities.
The Saudi
national used a “sharp tool” to injure the guard, who is receiving treatment in
hospital, the Saudi Press Agency said.
The attack
was reported within hours of the killing of three people and injuring of
several others in a church in Nice, and the shooting of a man who allegedly
attacked police officers in Avignon. There is not yet an indication the
incidents are coordinated.
The French
embassy in Riyadh released a statement confirming the incident. “The French
consulate general in Jeddah this morning was subjected to a knife stabbing
incident targeting a security guard – an employee of a private security company
– and immediately the Saudi security forces arrested the perpetrator,” it said.
“The security guard was taken to a hospital, and his health condition remains
stable.
“The embassy
of France strongly condemns this vicious attack against a diplomatic facility,”
the statement read, adding that the embassy “affirms its full support for the
victim and expresses its confidence in the Saudi authorities to uncover the
circumstances of the accident and ensure the security of French facilities and
the French community in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia”.
Anti-French
sentiment has been high across many Muslim countries this week owing to the
French president Emmanuel Macron’s perceived attacks on French Muslims and
support for the right to caricature the prophet Muhammad.
Leaders of
several Muslim-majority nations, state-affiliated and independent media
outlets, and clerical establishments in several countries have called for
boycotts against French products, and Paris issued a security warning for its
citizens earlier this week.
Tensions have
been stoked by several incidents in the past month including the re-publication
of cartoons depicting the prophet Muhammad by the French satirical outlet
Charlie Hebdo on the eve of a trial for alleged accomplices of the terrorists
who attacked the magazine’s offices in 2015 as revenge for publishing the same
images.
Macron also
made a landmark speech in early October calling for the reform of French Islam
and saying the religion was “in crisis” in many parts of the world. He
acknowledge the pain caused by French colonialism in north Africa, but the
speech was poorly received in the Muslim world.
Tensions have
sharply increased in the past fortnight after a young man of Chechen origin
beheaded the teacher Samuel Paty, who had shown the Muhammad drawings to his
classroom.
The French
president responded to the incident by posthumously awarding Paty the country’s
highest honours and redoubling his campaign against what he calls “Islamist
separatism”. He also defended the right of French citizens to freely express
themselves including through cartooning.
There have
been protests against France this week in Baghdad and Dhaka, and France’s top
diplomat in Tehran was summoned by Iranian authorities to lodge a protest
against Macron’s conduct.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/oct/29/man-arrested-in-saudi-arabia-after-alleged-knife-attack-at-french-consulate
--------
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