One person killed in Paris knife attack, attacker shot dead
Paris police shoot dead assailant who went on stabbing spree near French capital's Opera landmark; at least four reported wounded, one killed; attacker reportedly yelled 'Allahu akbar' during attack.
A man killed a passer-by in a knife attack in the heart of Paris Saturday night and wounded four others before being shot dead by police, French authorities said. The Europe 1 network reported the assailant cried out "Allahu akbar" during the attack.
An unnamed police official, meanwhile, told the Le Parisien daily newspaper that before being shot, the attack shouted at cops, "Kill me, or I'll kill you."
Pierre Gaudin, a senior official at the Paris prefecture, told reporters, "A person attacked five people in the second district of Paris. Police intervened immediately."
"The individual died. Another person, seriously injured (by the attacked) died from their injuries."
French Interior Minister Gerard Collomb called it an "odious" attack while extolling officers' "swift response in neutralizing the attacker."
The Paris prefecture had earlier said a person had carried out a knife attack in the second arrondissement—or district—of the French capital. Paris's opera and landmark retail stores are located in that area.
Eyewitness described a panic in the streets of central Paris, saying people were attempting to hide in restaurants and cafés. According to unconfirmed reports, police attempted to use a taser gun to incapacitate the attacker, but later fired two bullets at him, killing him.
"I left a performance near Place de l'Opera in central Paris and was immediately told to go back inside because there was a madman with a knife," a local reporter recounted. "When I went back in, we heard sirens and two gunshots. I spoke with eyewitnesses then who told me a man stabbed a lot of people."
A man who resides on the street where the attack took place described seeing the "body of a man whose hands were bloodied."
France has been on high alert as a series of attacks commissioned or inspired by Islamic State have hit the country over the past three years in which dozens of people have been killed.
The Islamic State group's Aamaq news agency said in a statement early Sunday that the assailant carried out the attack in response to the group's calls for supporters to target members of the US-led military coalition squeezing the extremists out of Iraq and Syria.
The Aamaq statement did not provide evidence for its claim or details on the assailant's identity.
