PARIS: A knife-wielding man attacked a soldier in Paris on Friday, the latest assault to raise questions over whether France’s anti-terror patrols are a target for extremists.
The soldier, who was part of an anti-terrorism operation known as Sentinelle, rapidly tackled the man and was uninjured. The attacker was taken into custody.
The man had lunged at the soldier at the central Chatelet metro station around 6.30 am (0430 GMT), making reference to Allah, a police source said. The attacker was not previously known to police.
Investigators have opened an anti-terror probe, government spokesman Christophe Castaner said.
The incident came with France still on high alert following a string of terror attacks which began in January 2015 when jihadist gunmen stormed the offices of satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo, killing 12.
The government launched Operation Sentinelle after that attack, deploying some 7,000 troops across the country to guard high-risk areas such as tourist sites and religious buildings.
Since then the troops have been attacked seven times, including last month when a man rammed a car into a group of soldiers in the Paris suburbs, injuring six.
Though much smaller in scale than the 2015 Islamic State attacks in Paris and last year’s truck attack in Nice, the repeated assaults on soldiers have sparked criticism that their patrols have become a target.
But defense minister Florence Parly said the fact that the attacker was swiftly brought under control Friday was “proof of the professionalism and efficiency of the Sentinelle soldiers in their mission to protect.”
“We do not know the intentions of the attacker,” she told Europe 1 radio.
In February, a 29-year-old Egyptian brandishing machetes in each hand attacked four soldiers patrolling near the Louvre museum in Paris, shouting “Allahu akbar” (God is greatest).
In March, a man was shot dead at the capital’s Orly airport after attacking troops.
Friday’s attack came a day after Interior Minister Gerard Collomb said the Sentinelle operation would “evolve” but ruled out cuts to troop numbers.
“We want to redeploy it to do better against the threat we are facing today,” Collomb said, adding there would be changes to the way the force is organized.
The military has already shifted toward mobile patrols and away from posting troops outside buildings on permanent watch.
Critics argue that the patrols have done little to increase security and that troops are placed at unnecessary risk for an operation largely aimed at reassuring the public.
They also point to the strain it puts on an army that has 10,000 troops active abroad, including 4,000 fighting jihadism in west Africa.
Knife-wielding man attacks soldier in Paris
Knife-wielding man attacks soldier in Paris
Death sentence sought for ex-South Korea leader Yoon over martial law decree
- Removed from office last April, Yoon faces criminal trials over his martial law debacle and other scandals
- The court is expected to deliver a verdict on Yoon in February
SEOUL: An independent counsel has demanded a death sentence for former South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol on rebellion charges in connection with his short-lived imposition of martial law in December 2024.
The Seoul Central District Court said independent counsel Cho Eun-suk’s team made the request at a hearing Tuesday. Yoon was expected to make remarks there.
Removed from office last April, Yoon faces criminal trials over his martial law debacle and other scandals related to his time in office. Charges that he directed a rebellion are the most significant ones.
The court is expected to deliver a verdict on Yoon in February.
Yoon has maintained that his decree was a desperate yet peaceful attempt to raise public awareness about what he considered the danger of the liberal opposition Democratic Party, which used its legislative majority to obstruct his agenda and complicate state affairs.
Yoon called the opposition-controlled parliament “a den of criminals” and “anti-state forces.” But lawmakers rushed to object to the imposition of martial law in dramatic overnight scenes, and enough of them, including even those within Yoon’s ruling party, managed to enter an assembly hall to vote down the decree.
Yoon’s decree, the first of its kind in more than 40 years in South Korea, brought armed troops into Seoul streets to encircle the assembly and enter election offices. That evoked traumatic memories of dictatorships in the 1970s and 1980s, when military-backed rulers used martial law and other emergency decrees to station soldiers, tanks and armored vehicles in public places to suppress pro-democracy protests.
Yoon’s decree and ensuing power vacuum plunged South Korea into political turmoil, halted the country’s high-level diplomacy and rattled its financial markets.
Yoon’s earlier vows to fight attempts to impeach and arrest him deepened the country’s political divide. In January last year, he became the country’s first sitting president to be detained.
