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THE LOUVRE REOPENED today, 24 hours after a soldier patrolling the museum shot a machete-wielding attacker, believed to be an Egyptian who entered the country on a tourist visa a week ago.
The incident has thrust security and the terror threat back into the limelight three months before elections in France, with authorities saying it was a “terrorist” assault.
The attacker, in a black t-shirt bearing a skull design and armed with two 16-inch machetes, lunged at four patrolling French soldiers while shouting “Allahu Akbar” (“God is greatest”), Paris prosecutor Francois Molins told a press conference.
One of the troops was struck on the head and another fell to the ground outside the famous Paris museum after the assailant attacked. The second soldier managed to open fire and hit the machete-wielder in the stomach.
“The attacker fell to the ground, seriously wounded. He has been taken to hospital and is fighting for his life,” the prosecutor said.
A source later said that the suspect’s condition had stabilised. Security forces said one soldier had suffered a minor head wound.
Police held hundreds of tourists in secure areas of the world famous attraction after the assailant was shot five times around 10am in a public area near one of the museum’s entrances.
‘Terrorist nature’
The attacker, who is thought to be aged 29 and living in the United Arab Emirates, is believed to have entered France legally on a flight from Dubai on January 26, a source said.
An Egyptian passport, thought to be the suspect’s, was found during a search of an apartment in an expensive district of Paris near the Champs-Elysees.
Investigators are examining the Twitter account of an Egyptian man named Abdallah El Hamahmy after around a dozen messages were posted in Arabic between 9:27 am and 9:34 am, just minutes prior to the attack.
“In the name of Allah… for our brothers in Syria and fighters across the world,” El Hamahmy wrote, before making reference to the Islamic State jihadist group in another tweet a minute later.
The UAE government condemned the “hateful crime” and assured France of its “full solidarity”.
As French authorities probed the attacker’s background, President Francois Hollande said that “there is little doubt as to the terrorist nature of this act,” an assessment echoed by Prime Minister Bernard Cazeneuve.
France was already reeling from a string of terror attacks over the last two years and the country has been under a state of emergency since November 2015.
The economy, immigration and security are major issues for voters ahead of this year’s presidential and parliamentary elections forecast to confirm the country’s shift to the right after five years of Socialist rule.
US President Donald Trump, commenting on the attack, warned Americans that they must “keep evil out of our country”.
Witnesses described scenes of panic as people fled the Louvre complex following the incident.
“We heard gunshots. We didn’t know what it was about. Then we evacuated the employees and we left,” one man who works in a nearby restaurant told AFP.
A female colleague said: “We saw death coming for us, with everything that’s happening at the moment. We were very, very scared.”
- © AFP 2017.
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Shows his IQ level, he supports isis and attacks 4 heavily armed soldiers with a couple of knives/machetes. Only going to be one winner in that exchange.
The French font mess about! Great result!
God must actually facepalm everytime one of these neanderthal fackwits shouts out how sound he is while trying to kill someone.
Maybe you should learn more about the beliefs in Islam and their various interpretations. And also recognise that god doesn’t exist. And even if it did, I mean, why would the creator of the universe have hands and a face? And why would it care about a minuscule blue dot with some self-important apes on it in all of its infinite creation?
@Awkward Seal:
Touché.
Muslims – 1.6 billion.
Muslims who believe wife should obey husband – 1.39 billion.
Muslims who believe Sharia should rule – 1.1 billion.
Muslims who believe in death for adultery – 748 million.
Muslims who believe in death for leaving Islam – 584 million.
Source: Pew Research Centre. The World’s Muslims: Religion, Politics and Society.
http://www.pewforum.org/2013/04/30/the-worlds-muslims-religion-politics-society-overview/
You left out the bit where the majority of Muslims believe it should only apply to Muslims. Kind of goes against your creeping Islam theory. Also the death for adultery and death for leaving Islam statistic is not in the link.
@Dave OKeeffe You are tireless defender of Islam and the prophet peace be upon him on the journal……Are you recent convert by any chance
@Dave O Keeffe: It took me well over an hour to read the report and garner the figures. Remarkable that you could do it in well under an hour!
Or perhaps you didn’t bother reading it and instead decided to try and deflect from the numbers and defend Islam.
I’ll go with the latter.
An hour? That doesn’t surprise me at all.
I don’t know why the Alt-Right get so worked up about what’s happening in another country,don’t we have enough of our own problems here?
At least that’s what they always say when people criticise what Trump is doing in America. Hypocrites.
Sean. I find those research studies very misleading. Unless they interviewed every single Muslim in the world it’s BS.
I know and am friends with about 10 people who come from the Islamic faith. All of them hate sharia. Don’t think men are superior. And most of all… hate extremism. They’re all men btw.
@sean the results differ per country and per region in the report, how you justify laying out these on the entire Muslim population, without adding the nuances as Pew did, it is in an exercise in fear mongering we see all to often in right-wing leaning voices
@Rebecca De Stanleigh: That’s not how statistics and research work. When you refer to people you know you’re talking about anecdotal evidence. That’s the weakest evidence. Anecdotes are not data.
@Red Marauder: Pew did not ‘add nuance’ because that’s not what research does. What he did was he added up the muslim populations of each of the countries studied and applied the percentages for each country to arrive at a total numerical figure. You could do that work for yourself and see if it adds up. Unless, that is, you happen to not have the slightest interest in the truth and are far more interested in silencing anyone who you deem to be ‘fear-mongering’.
@Rebecca De Stanleigh: Do you understand how polling works?
Sample size doesn’t much depend on the population size, which is counter-intuitive to many.
Most polling companies use 400 or 1000 people in their samples.
There is a reason for this:
A sample size of 400 will give you a confidence interval of +/-5% 19 times out of 20 (95%).
A sample size of 1000 will give you a confidence interval of +/-3% 19 times out of 20 (95%).
You are absolutely right Liam we have enough of our own problems so letting hordes of your fellow Islamists into the country is not wise , I take it you don’t agree ?
But Sean,all polls are rigged by the liberal left,remember Brexit? Mainstream media conspiracy!!!
No wonder the right is rising all across mainland Europe “Islam” is playing an absolute blinder!.
@William Boyd: Theocrats are on ‘the right’ by any measure. It’s just been so long since we’ve had to deal with an organized movement of violent theocrats in western Europe that people have forgotten what it’s about.
The numbers arriving have already dropped off due to the terror attacks there. This is another disaster for French tourism.
http://www.thelocal.fr/20160810/in-numbers-how-tourists-are-deserting-france
It’s a shame. Beautiful city, went there last April for a few days. Will definitely go back, loved it.
The religion of peace!!!!
Gotta get in a dig a Trump when the article is about a terrorist attack in France, how is he relevant at all to this journal?
Because he put out a childish Tweet about it,it’s in the article if you bothered to read it.
I am sure lots of people put tweets out about it, but we don’t see them tweets, how about one actually relevant, such as a tweet or comment from the French president. Did read the article, nothing in it has any connection to Trump.
Because he is now the most powerful man in the world, with nuke codes. And tweets like an uneducated buffoon who couldnt tie his own shoelaces. Whether or not you think the majority of Muslims are terrorists, the world was already on the brink of WW3 before that muppet got elected. But he got the votes he needed, so no amount of giving out or protesting can do anything about it. We just have to wait til he messes up and gets impeached.
The brink of ww3? I really doubt it, we were at the brink of ww3 during the cuban missile crisis, not now, in comparrison the relations between the west, Russia and the middle east governments are far better than the tensions between USSR and the West then. What makes you think WW3 is going to trigger?
The UAE funds and permits its citizens to fund jihadist terrorism.
“The other major headache for the US in the Gulf region is the United Arab Emirates. The Afghan Taliban and their militant partners the Haqqani network earn “significant funds” through UAE-based businesses, according to one report. The Taliban extort money from the large Pashtun community in the UAE, which is home to 1 million Pakistanis and 150,000 Afghans. They also fundraise by kidnapping Pashtun businessmen based in Dubai or their relatives”
This is what the UAE actually gets up to and this is why ‘the advancement of religion’ must not be designated as a charitable purpose in Ireland any longer:
“Charities from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates financed a network in Pakistan that recruited children as young as eight to wage “holy war”, a local newspaper reported on Sunday, citing Wikileaks.
A US diplomatic cable published by WikiLeaks said financial support estimated at $100 million a year was making its way from those Gulf Arab states to an extremist recruitment network in Pakistan’s Punjab province, Dawn newspaper reported….
…It said those sources claimed that financial aid from Saudi and United Arab Emirates was coming from “missionary” and”Islamic charitable” organisations ostensibly with the direct support of those countries’ governments.
Saudi Arabia is seen as funding some of Pakistan’s hardline religious seminaries, or madrassas, which churn out young men eager for “holy war”, posing a threat to the stability of the region.
“At these madrassas, children are denied contact with the outside world and taught sectarian extremism, hatred for non-Muslims, and anti-Western/anti-Pakistan government philosophy,” said the cable….
…“The path following recruitment depends upon the age of the child involved. Younger children (between 8 and 12) seem to be favoured,” said the cable.
Teachers in seminaries would assess the inclination of children “to engage in violence and acceptance of jihadi culture”.
Same as Islamic State.
Marie Le Pen will sort it out.
Marine*
We should all show a bit more Louvre.
On a related note, Paris has become a terrible city to visit as a tourist. The bottom of the Eiffel Tower is like a fortress. Yet there was no police present at lesser visited sites where I was physically assaulted by an agressive bunch of men trying to sell me rubbish. Twice!
Paris is still Europe’s finest city though – with Rome and London. They simply have everything – culture, history, museums/exhibitions, sport, food etc. etc. And the Eurostar will bring you into the centre – fast!
@Awkward Seal: That’s because police are all diverted to try to protect people against terrorism. There aren’t enough police in the universe to do that while also preventing ordinary crime.
Trump does IS job for them by making sure everyone knows this is terror!!! Before he knows any details.
@Louis Jacob: President Francois Hollande said that “there is little doubt as to the terrorist nature of this act,” an assessment echoed by Prime Minister Bernard Cazeneuve.
Sounds like Trump is correct.
Who has most to gain, in any attack , -on French soil, -with upcoming Elections? Doubtful if it’s some Egyptian MACHETE wielding patsy? Let us start looking ‘behind’ the NEWS. Truth isn’t always IN the news.
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