Another IS Claimed Attack in Paris

vipersna · #1 ● 06-13-2016, 10:31 PM

http://www.ksby.com/story/32212994/o...pe=smartdevice

Officials: Police couple killed outside Paris, child rescued - KSBY.com | San Luis Obispo and Santa Barbara Area News

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Officials: Police couple killed outside Paris, child rescued
By RAPHAEL SATTER
Associated Press
PARIS (AP) - A knife-wielding attacker stabbed a senior police officer to death Monday evening outside his home in a distant suburb of Paris, officials said. The attacker and a female companion of the police commander were later found dead after police commandos stormed the home and rescued the couple's three-year-old son.

French officials said anti-terrorism prosecutors were investigating the attack. The Islamic State's Amaq news agency cited an unnamed "source" as saying an IS fighter carried out the attack, but the extremist jihadist group has not officially claimed responsibility.

The off-duty police commander was attacked outside his home in Magnanville, about 35 miles (55 kilometers) west of Paris, interior minister spokesman Pierre-Henry Brandet told reporters at the scene. The attacker then retreated indoors and elite police commandos laid siege to the residence, eventually storming it after a roughly three-hour standoff. Brandet said the woman, the commander's companion and a fellow police worker, was found dead, as was the attacker. The police couple's son was unharmed.

Although officials said the attacker was killed by police when they stormed the residence, it was unclear how the woman was killed.

"The toll is a heavy one," Brandet told reporters, his voice heavy with emotion. "This commander, this police officer was killed by the individual ... (and) we discovered the body of a woman. The assailant, the criminal was killed. Thankfully, a little boy was saved. He was in the house. He's safe and sound. He was saved by police officers."

The Paris prosecutor's office said early Tuesday that anti-terrorism investigators had been brought in to the case given the target, the method behind the attack, and what the attacker said to police during the ensuing standoff.

The office did not elaborate, but French media, some of them citing unnamed neighbors, reported that the attacker was heard shouting "Allahu Akbar" - Arabic for "God is Great" - during the attack.

French prosecutor Vincent Lesclous - who said he knew the slain police commander - told reporters that the boy was found "shocked but unharmed." He said the assailant's identity was unknown.

If the crime was in fact organized or inspired by IS, it would fit in with a long-established pattern of jihadist violence. France, like other countries in Europe, has seen a series of stabbings aimed at police officers or soldiers and carried out by Muslim radicals. IS has encouraged its supporters to stage such attacks.

Tensions have been particularly high since Islamic State extremists claimed responsibility for the Nov. 13 Paris attacks that killed 130 people.

In Paris, the Eiffel Tower was lit up Monday night in the colors of a rainbow to honor victims of Saturday's mass shooting at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, that killed at least 49 people. The gunman declared his allegiance to IS in phone calls to police, but his motives remain unclear.

French President Francois Hollande condemned what he described as an "odious act," saying that he would hold a meeting at his Elysee Palace office on Tuesday.

"Light will be shed on the circumstances of this abominable drama whose investigation, under the authority of justice, will determine the exact nature," Hollande said in a statement.

Another article:

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/06/14...mO39JbqSl0AK6w

The New York Times
INEurope

ISIS Claims Responsibility for Killing of French Police Officer

Investigators near the scene of the stabbing that killed a police officer in Magnanville, France. His companion also died in the attack.
MATTHIEU ALEXANDRE / AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE — GETTY IMAGES
By ALISSA J. RUBIN
JUNE 13, 2016
PARIS — A police captain was fatally stabbed and his companion was also killed at their home in a small town northwest of Paris on Monday evening, and within hours the Islamic State claimed responsibility for the murders.

The police captain, who was not otherwise identified, was outside his home in Magnanville when he was stabbed by an unidentified assailant, who appeared to have then entered the house and took the captain’s companion and 3-year-old son hostage, according to a statement on the website of the French Interior Ministry and a statement from President François Hollande.

Members of an elite French police unit arrived and raided the home. They fatally shot the attacker, found the woman dead and rescued the boy. The statement added that the woman was an employee of the Interior Ministry.

A statement issued in Arabic by the Amaq News Agency, which is linked to the Islamic State, said: “Islamic State fighter kills deputy chief of the police station in the city of Les Mureaux and his wife with blade weapons,” according to a translation provided by the SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors jihadist websites.

It is the second attack during Ramadan this year that has been tied to the Islamic State. The first was the shooting on Sunday in Orlando, Fla., in which 49 died, making it the worst mass shooting in American history. Before he was killed by the police, the gunman, Omar Mateen, pledged his allegiance to the Islamic State.

Ramadan, a holy month for Muslims dedicated to fasting and prayer, has historically been a time when both Al Qaeda and now the Islamic State have escalated attacks. In his annual pre-Ramadan speech, an Islamic State spokesman, Abu Muhammad al-Adnani — who had not issued a statement in approximately seven months — re-emerged to call on the group’s followers to carry out assaults in Europe and America.

“The smallest action you do in the heart of their land is dearer to us than the largest action by us,” Mr. Adnani declared in the audio speech, which was uploaded to Telegram and Twitter on May 21.

Mr. Hollande called the attack “a cowardly murder” in a statement issued late Monday, saying he would be briefed on the case early Tuesday and that the interior minister, Bernard Cazeneuve, would travel on Tuesday morning to the area where the killings took place.

Magnanville is about 35 miles from central Paris.

With the Euro 2016 soccer tournament underway in France and multiple warnings of the possibility of terrorist attacks during the monthlong event, the authorities have been on alert for possible attacks. Extraordinary measures have been put in place to ensure that the crowds of visitors at the soccer matches will be safe.

Much of the public focus has been on avoiding a repeat of the sort of attacks that killed 130 people in and near Paris on Nov. 13. In that case, a network of former Islamic State fighters from Belgium and France staged the attacks along with a few people who expressed loyalty to the extremist group but had not traveled abroad to fight.

However, perhaps the risk that is harder to protect against are the lone-wolf attacks encouraged by the Islamic State. Such would-be jihadists are harder for the authorities to detect.

A similar case arose in June 2015 when an employee at a small trucking company beheaded his boss and attempted to set off an explosion at an American-owned chemical and gas factory near Lyon. The man, Yassine Salhi, appears to have had a friend who had gone to Syria to join the Islamic State, and Mr. Salhi sent him pictures of the beheading.

Mr. Salhi killed himself in prison in December while awaiting trial.

The beheading, like the stabbing on Monday evening, took place during Ramadan.