French Soldier Stabbed In Paris

A French soldier patrolling a business area of western Paris was stabbed in the neck on Saturday by a man who quickly fled the scene and was still being sought, a police source said.

The attack was being treated as a "terrorist incident", said a source at the Paris prosecutors office.

"The anti-terrorist branch of the prosecutors office is dealing with the matter," the source added.

Coming just four days after the murder of British soldier Lee Rigby in London, the stabbing was immediately seen as a possible copycat attack.

The 25-year-old, patrolling as part of France's Vigipirate anti-terrorist surveillance plan, was injured in the stabbing around 6pm but would survive, the source said. He was reported to be from France's Fourth Cavalry regiment, based in Gap in the southern Alps.

Colonel Thierry Burkhard, military spokesman, said: "He has been wounded but his life is not in danger."



He was attacked in the Parisian business district of La Defense, inside the train station.

French daily Le Parisien cited police sources as saying the suspected attacker was a bearded man of North African origin about 30 years old, and was wearing an Arab-style garment under his jacket.

He ran away following the attack and has not yet been detained.

Pierre-Andre Peyvel, police prefect for the Hauts-de-Seine area, said the soldier had lost a considerable amount of blood but would survive, and was being treated in a nearby military hospital.

"The wound appears to be quite serious, but it's not life-threatening," he told iTele news television.

Francois Hollande, the French president, said that "at the moment" no link was being made between the murder of Drummer Rigby but that "we must look at all the hypotheses".

Speaking from Ethiopia, where he was attending the African Union summit, he said: "We still do not know the exact circumstances of this attack, nor who the attacker was.

"But we must explore all the possibilities and we will not rule anything out."

Herve Morin, a former defence minister, said on Twitter that "any attack on soldiers protecting us is absolutely unforgivable".

France is on high alert for attacks by Islamist militants following its military intervention in Mali in January, which prompted threats against French interests from AQIM, the North African wing of al Qaeda.

On Friday a jihadist group based in West Africa claimed responsability for attacks on a French uranium mine in Niger, which it said was in response to France's military action in the region.


Link: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/france/10080737/French-soldier-stabbed-in-Paris.html

It's basically the same attack that happened 4 days ago in the UK.

It's crummy enough that soldiers must be on alert for threats to their lives when they are in a war area. It's positively wretched that that they now apparently have to worry about their lives while they are at home, in their own communities.

(But I still don't think that putting on an ethnic Arab garb and then acting like a douchebag qualifies as being a "terrorist." He's just a common, un-special arse-wipe in unfamiliar dressing.)

I get really annoyed when every little thing is called a "terrorist interest" or "terrorist attack" etc...
Call it for what it is: an assault on a military officer by a guy wearing "islamic" garb.