On 12 May 2018, a 20-year-old
Chechnya-born French citizen, armed with a knife, killed one pedestrian and injured four others near the
Palais Garnier
The Palais Garnier (, Garnier Palace), also known as Opéra Garnier (, Garnier Opera), is a 1,979-seatBeauvert 1996, p. 102. opera house at the Place de l'Opéra in the 9th arrondissement of Paris, France. It was built for the Paris Opera from ...
, the opera house in
Paris
Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...
, France, before being fatally shot by police. The stabbings were in the area of Rue Saint-Augustin and
Passage Choiseul
Passage Choiseul is one of the covered passages of Paris, France located in the 2nd arrondissement. It is the continuation of Rue de Choiseul.
History
The Passage Choiseul is on a site previously occupied by four '' hôtels particuliers'', acqui ...
.
French President
Emmanuel Macron
Emmanuel Macron (; born 21 December 1977) is a French politician who has served as President of France since 2017. ''Ex officio'', he is also one of the two Co-Princes of Andorra. Prior to his presidency, Macron served as Minister of Econ ...
said France had "paid once again the price of blood but will not cede an inch to the enemies of freedom."
The suspect, identified as Khamzat Azimov, had been on a counter-terrorism watchlist since 2016.
Amaq News Agency
Amaq News Agency ( ar, وكالة أعماق الإخبارية) is a news outlet linked to the Islamic State (IS). Amaq publishes news reports about claims of responsibility for terrorist attacks in Western countries. It is often the "first poi ...
posted a video of a hooded person pledging allegiance to
Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant
An Islamic state is a State (polity), state that has a form of government based on sharia, Islamic law (sharia). As a term, it has been used to describe various historical Polity, polities and theories of governance in the Islamic world. As a t ...
(ISIL) leader
Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi
Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi ( ar, أبو بكر البغدادي, ʾAbū Bakr al-Baḡdādī; born Ibrahim Awad Ibrahim Ali Muhammad al-Badri al-Samarrai ( ar, إبراهيم عواد إبراهيم علي محمد البدري السامرائي, ʾIb ...
, claimed to be the attacker.
Europol classified the attack as jihadist terrorism.
Incident
The attack occurred at around 8:47 p.m., in the
second arrondissement of Paris.
Police first tried twice to stop the attacker with a
stun-gun before shooting the suspect fatally when the stun-gun failed to incapacitate him. Footage from the scene shows people running northward from Rue Mehul into Rue Marsollier, and at least one individual on the corner of the streets potentially wounded.
An unnamed witness was interviewed by France's
BFM network, who stated that a young woman at the entrance of a restaurant was knifed in the neck, before being rescued, and the attacker moved to another street.
Suspect
The attack was put under investigation of a counter-terrorism unit of the
Paris Police Prefecture
The police prefecture (french: préfecture de police) is the unit of the French Ministry of the Interior that provides police, emergency services, and various administrative services to the population of the city of Paris and the surrounding t ...
.
The pro-ISIL
Amaq News Agency
Amaq News Agency ( ar, وكالة أعماق الإخبارية) is a news outlet linked to the Islamic State (IS). Amaq publishes news reports about claims of responsibility for terrorist attacks in Western countries. It is often the "first poi ...
claimed the suspect as a "soldier of the Islamic State", responding to its call to attack coalition citizens. Prosecutor Francois Molins stated that the attacker shouted "
Allahu Akbar
Allah (; ar, الله, translit=Allāh, ) is the common Arabic word for God. In the English language, the word generally refers to God in Islam. The word is thought to be derived by contraction from '' al- ilāh'', which means "the god", an ...
" during the attack.
The suspect was named as Khamzat Azimov, a French citizen and nursing student, born on November 1, 1997, in
Argun,
Chechnya
Chechnya ( rus, Чечня́, Chechnyá, p=tɕɪtɕˈnʲa; ce, Нохчийчоь, Noxçiyçö), officially the Chechen Republic,; ce, Нохчийн Республика, Noxçiyn Respublika is a republic of Russia. It is situated in the ...
. He came with his parents to France in the early 2000s where the family was granted
refugee status
A refugee, conventionally speaking, is a displaced person who has crossed national borders and who cannot or is unwilling to return home due to well-founded fear of persecution. in 2004. Growing up in
Strasbourg
Strasbourg (, , ; german: Straßburg ; gsw, label=Bas Rhin Alsatian, Strossburi , gsw, label=Haut Rhin Alsatian, Strossburig ) is the prefecture and largest city of the Grand Est region of eastern France and the official seat of the Eu ...
, in the Region of
Alsace
Alsace (, ; ; Low Alemannic German/ gsw-FR, Elsàss ; german: Elsass ; la, Alsatia) is a cultural region and a territorial collectivity in eastern France, on the west bank of the upper Rhine next to Germany and Switzerland. In 2020, it had ...
, in 2010, his mother became a French citizen, which allowed him to be naturalized also. The then-19-year-old suspect became a person of interest for the
DGSI in 2016, when some of his acquaintances planned to travel to
Syria
Syria ( ar, سُورِيَا or سُورِيَة, translit=Sūriyā), officially the Syrian Arab Republic ( ar, الجمهورية العربية السورية, al-Jumhūrīyah al-ʻArabīyah as-Sūrīyah), is a Western Asian country loc ...
. He had no previous criminal record; however,
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an Television in the United States, American English-language Commercial broadcasting, commercial television network, broadcast television and radio network. The flagship property of the NBC Enterta ...
reported that the "suspect was on a police watch list for radicalism." A judicial source told French media that his parents were being held for questioning. In Chechnya, security forces deployed armored personnel carriers in
Argun to round up relatives of Azimov for questioning.
A high-school friend of Azimov was arrested in Strasbourg and transferred to Paris.
Shortly before the attack, he had sent his sister a text message of "a jihadist chant regularly used by the Islamic State" from one of his at least eight cellphones. The suspect, identified as Abdul Hakim A, also a Chechen-born French national who had appeared on terror watch lists, was charged with "associating with criminal terrorists with plans to attack people."
Two women were detained for questioning, one reportedly Hakim A's radicalised wife who in 2017 had attempted to leave for Syria.
Reactions
Paris Mayor
Anne Hidalgo
Ana María "Anne" Hidalgo Aleu (, ; born 1959) is a Spanish-French politician who has served as Mayor of Paris since 2014, the first woman to hold the office. She is a member of the Socialist Party.
Hidalgo served as First Deputy Mayor of Paris ...
wrote on
Twitter
Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...
about the attack that "tonight, our city has been bruised" and that "all Parisians are by their side", referring to the families and friends of the victims.
French President
The president of France, officially the president of the French Republic (french: Président de la République française), is the executive head of state of France, and the commander-in-chief of the French Armed Forces. As the presidency is ...
Emmanuel Macron
Emmanuel Macron (; born 21 December 1977) is a French politician who has served as President of France since 2017. ''Ex officio'', he is also one of the two Co-Princes of Andorra. Prior to his presidency, Macron served as Minister of Econ ...
categorized the attacker a "terrorist". French Interior Minister
Gérard Collomb
Gérard Collomb (; born 20 June 1947) is a French politician who served as Mayor of Lyon from 2001 to 2017 and again from 2018 until 2020. A member of La République En Marche! (LREM) since he left the Socialist Party (PS) in 2017, he was Ministe ...
praised the cool and quick response of the French police who "neutralized" the assailant.
President of the
Chechen Republic
Chechnya ( rus, Чечня́, Chechnyá, p=tɕɪtɕˈnʲa; ce, Нохчийчоь, Noxçiyçö), officially the Chechen Republic,; ce, Нохчийн Республика, Noxçiyn Respublika is a republic of Russia. It is situated in the ...
,
Ramzan Kadyrov
Ramzan Akhmadovich Kadyrov ce, КъадаргӀеран Ахьмат-кӏант Рамзан, translit= (born 5 October 1976) is a Russian politician who currently serves as the Head of the Chechen Republic. He was formerly affiliated to the ...
, blamed French authorities and his upbringing in France for the attack, declaring that "In this light, I see fit to declare that all responsibility for the fact that Azimov has embarked on the criminal path rests with the French authorities."
This caused French Foreign Minister
Jean-Yves Le Drian
Jean-Yves Le Drian (; born 30 June 1947) is a French politician who served as Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs, Minister of Europe and Foreign Affairs in the First Philippe government, governments of Prime Ministers Édouard Philippe and ...
to respond by blaming it on "extrajudicial crackdowns against Chechen civilians" by Kadyrov's security forces.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Paris knife attack, 2018
2018 in Paris
2018 murders in France
May 2018 crimes in Europe
May 2018 events in France
Islamic terrorism in Paris
Islamic terrorist incidents in 2018
Stabbing attacks in 2018
Terrorist incidents in France in 2018
Terrorist incidents involving knife attacks
Stabbing attacks in France