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Photo: Photos
Scene of attack
Photo: Photos

Six French soldiers wounded in 'deliberate' car ramming in Paris

Local mayor says attack in which a BMW plowed into a crowd of soldiers in French capital was a 'deliberate' and 'odious act of aggression'; police launch manhunt for driver who fled the scene after wounding six.

French police say a vehicle slammed into soldiers guarding a Paris suburb of Levallois Wednesday morning, leaving two seriously injured and four lighty wounded, before getting away.

 

 

Authorities are now searching for the vehicle and driver after the incident, according to a Paris police spokesman.

 

Photo: Reuters
Photo: Reuters

 

The vehicle appeared to clearly target the soldiers but the motive is unclear, the spokesman said. The official was not authorized to be publicly named according to police policy.

 

Two police officials say authorities are checking video surveillance of the area near the city hall of Levallois to identify the vehicle and hunt the driver responsible for the attack.

 

Photo: Reuters
Photo: Reuters
 

 

The officials said witnesses described seeing a BMW with one person on board waiting in a cul-de-sac near a building used for soldiers from the Sentinelle operation. One official said the attacker hit just as a group of soldiers emerged from the building to board vehicles for a new shift.

 

Neither official was authorized to be publicly named discussing ongoing operations.

 

Soldiers in Paris (Photo: Getty Images)
Soldiers in Paris (Photo: Getty Images)

 

The incident in Levallois, northwest of Paris, is the latest of several attacks targeting security forces in France guarding sites after a string of deadly attacks.

 

Scene of incident (Photo: Reuters)
Scene of incident (Photo: Reuters)

Patrick Balkany, the local mayor for the western Paris suburb of Levallois-Perret, had "no doubt" that the incident was a deliberate act.

 

"Without any doubt, it was a deliberate act," Balkany told BFM TV.

 

"It's an odious act of aggression," Balkany also said, adding that the car in question was a BMW.

 

Roseline Bailleux, 67, was one of several people who said that the street where the soldiers were hit was nearly always thronged with soldiers.

 

She was woken in the morning by her husband, who had noticed a crush of ambulances and emergency vehicles.

 

Photo: AFP
Photo: AFP

 

"We thought it was an exercise," she said.

 

She said that area was popular with parents and their children but the attack happened when they weren't around.

 

She said she had been touched by several previous attacks, including the 2015 gun rampage at the Bataclan music venue in Paris—which was next door to where one of her children lived—and the 2016 Nice truck attack, which happened near where she used to live.

 

"I'm not going to stop walking through the park because of that. ... It can happen to anyone."

 


פרסום ראשון: 08.09.17, 11:02
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