French Soldiers Guarding Jewish Site Are Attacked
By MAÏA de la BAUME and DAN BILEFSKY
New York Times
FEB. 3, 2015
PARIS — The French police on Tuesday arrested a man believed to have attacked and wounded three soldiers who were guarding a Jewish community center in the southern city of Nice, prosecutors said, heightening anxieties just weeks after terrorist attacks in Paris shook the country.
The soldiers were patrolling in the city center, near a Jewish community center housing a Jewish radio station, when a knife-wielding attacker “rushed at the throat of one of the soldiers,” Christian Estrosi, the mayor of Nice, said in a telephone interview. The soldier escaped with minor injuries to his face, he said. The same attacker, Mr. Estrosi added, cut the arm of another soldier. News reports said the attacker was arrested after trying to flee on foot.
The attack coincided with the emergence of a video by the Islamic State militant group inciting French jihadists to carry out further terrorist acts. The video, which showed masked militants in a desert landscape, also urged sympathizers in France who cannot leave the country to take whatever action they can.
“Explode France,” a masked man said in the footage. “Explode the head of these guilty people.”
President François Hollande issued a statement condemning the Nice attack “with the greatest firmness.”
Mr. Hollande said officials would “shed light on the motivations and circumstances of this criminal act.”
The attacker, who was identified as Moussa Coulibaly, was known to the French police and “had been convicted for minor offenses,” said Agnès Thibault-Lecuivre, the spokeswoman for the Paris prosecutor.
The suspect had the same surname as Amedy Coulibaly, the gunman who killed four people at a kosher supermarket in Paris last month, but the authorities said it was unclear whether the two were related or whether they had known each other.
On Tuesday, the newspaper Le Monde said Moussa Coulibaly had aroused the attention of the police after he flew to Turkey on Jan. 28. Turkey has been used as a gateway for people seeking to enter Syria. But the Turkish authorities sent him back to France at the request of French intelligence officials.
In the aftermath of the attacks last month, the French government has increased security across the country, deploying thousands of soldiers and police officers to guard sites considered vulnerable, including Jewish schools, in what the Defense Ministry has called “the first mobilization on this scale on our territory.” The display of resolve by the government, still grappling with why it was unable to thwart January’s attacks, has been accompanied by tough measures against hate speech and an intensifying crackdown on the recruitment of French citizens, more than 1,000 of whom left or planned to leave last year to fight in Iraq or Syria.
The new Islamic State video, which was verified by the SITE Intelligence Group, an organization that monitors jihadist activity on the Internet, began with a sleekly produced series of television clips showing various attacks within France, including three that occurred late last year when men claiming to be militants drove cars into crowds.
That effort to root out jihadist recruitment networks continued Tuesday when French counterterrorism officers arrested eight people in the northern suburbs of Paris and in the area of the city of Lyon. They were suspected of being part of a network recruiting people to fight in Syria, the Interior Ministry said.
The arrests followed those of five people last week in the southern town of Lunel, where counterterrorism forces have been seeking to dismantle a network that has sent young people to Syria and Iraq.
Over the past year, more than 10 young people have left Lunel for Syria to join the Islamic State, and several have died in Syria or Iraq, according to the Interior Ministry.
Rukmini Callimachi contributed reporting from New York.
New York Times
FEB. 3, 2015
PARIS — The French police on Tuesday arrested a man believed to have attacked and wounded three soldiers who were guarding a Jewish community center in the southern city of Nice, prosecutors said, heightening anxieties just weeks after terrorist attacks in Paris shook the country.
The soldiers were patrolling in the city center, near a Jewish community center housing a Jewish radio station, when a knife-wielding attacker “rushed at the throat of one of the soldiers,” Christian Estrosi, the mayor of Nice, said in a telephone interview. The soldier escaped with minor injuries to his face, he said. The same attacker, Mr. Estrosi added, cut the arm of another soldier. News reports said the attacker was arrested after trying to flee on foot.
The attack coincided with the emergence of a video by the Islamic State militant group inciting French jihadists to carry out further terrorist acts. The video, which showed masked militants in a desert landscape, also urged sympathizers in France who cannot leave the country to take whatever action they can.
“Explode France,” a masked man said in the footage. “Explode the head of these guilty people.”
President François Hollande issued a statement condemning the Nice attack “with the greatest firmness.”
Mr. Hollande said officials would “shed light on the motivations and circumstances of this criminal act.”
The attacker, who was identified as Moussa Coulibaly, was known to the French police and “had been convicted for minor offenses,” said Agnès Thibault-Lecuivre, the spokeswoman for the Paris prosecutor.
The suspect had the same surname as Amedy Coulibaly, the gunman who killed four people at a kosher supermarket in Paris last month, but the authorities said it was unclear whether the two were related or whether they had known each other.
On Tuesday, the newspaper Le Monde said Moussa Coulibaly had aroused the attention of the police after he flew to Turkey on Jan. 28. Turkey has been used as a gateway for people seeking to enter Syria. But the Turkish authorities sent him back to France at the request of French intelligence officials.
In the aftermath of the attacks last month, the French government has increased security across the country, deploying thousands of soldiers and police officers to guard sites considered vulnerable, including Jewish schools, in what the Defense Ministry has called “the first mobilization on this scale on our territory.” The display of resolve by the government, still grappling with why it was unable to thwart January’s attacks, has been accompanied by tough measures against hate speech and an intensifying crackdown on the recruitment of French citizens, more than 1,000 of whom left or planned to leave last year to fight in Iraq or Syria.
The new Islamic State video, which was verified by the SITE Intelligence Group, an organization that monitors jihadist activity on the Internet, began with a sleekly produced series of television clips showing various attacks within France, including three that occurred late last year when men claiming to be militants drove cars into crowds.
That effort to root out jihadist recruitment networks continued Tuesday when French counterterrorism officers arrested eight people in the northern suburbs of Paris and in the area of the city of Lyon. They were suspected of being part of a network recruiting people to fight in Syria, the Interior Ministry said.
The arrests followed those of five people last week in the southern town of Lunel, where counterterrorism forces have been seeking to dismantle a network that has sent young people to Syria and Iraq.
Over the past year, more than 10 young people have left Lunel for Syria to join the Islamic State, and several have died in Syria or Iraq, according to the Interior Ministry.
Rukmini Callimachi contributed reporting from New York.
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