Three people killed and several injured in Nice knife attack

A knifeman killed three people and injured several
others in an attack inside a church in Nice on the Côte d’Azur.
The killings happened at 9am on Thursday morning
inside the Notre-Dame basilica in the city centre. There were unconfirmed
reports in the French media that at least one of the victims had been beheaded.
Police described the scene as a “vision of horror”.
The attacker was shot and injured by police and was
taken to hospital.
The mayor of Nice, Christian Estrosi, said the
attacker had repeated “Allahu Akbar” several times while he was being arrested
and handcuffed by police.
He said a woman victim had been decapitated but he
had no details of how the two others were killed.
Estrosi said: “We have two people killed inside the
church … and a third person who was in a bar facing the church where she had
taken refuge. Enough is enough … we have to remove this Islamo-fascism from our
territory.”
The attack comes less than two weeks after history
teacher Samuel Paty, 47, was beheaded outside his high school after showing his
class caricatures including one of the Prophet Muhammad during a discussion on
free speech.
“Before it was a school professor, this time the
Islamo-fascist barbarism chose to attack inside a church. Again, it is very
symbolic,” Estrosi added.
Police confirmed that three people had died in the
attack.
France’s anti-terrorist prosecutor has been brought
in to investigate charges of “killing linked to a terrorist organisation”.
President Emmanuel Macron is heading to Nice.
Nice was attacked in July 2016 when a terrorist
drove a 19-tonne truck into crowds of people celebrating Bastille Day on the
famous Promenade des Anglais, killing 86 people and injuring 458 others. The
driver Mohamed Lahouaiej-Bouhlel, a Tunisian living in France, was shot and
killed by police.
After the killing of Paty at
Conflans-Sainte-Honorine on 16 October, Macron said France was engaged in an
“existential” battle against Islamist fundamentalism.
His comments and support for the publication of
controversial caricatures of the Prophet by the satirical newspaper Charlie
Hebdo have sparked angry protests across the Muslim world, with pictures of the
president burned and calls for a boycott of French goods.
The prime minister, Jean Castex, left the Assemblée
National urgently after a minute of silence before joining the interior
minister, Gérard Darmanin, in a “crisis cell” at the ministry.