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发帖数: 3433 | 1 A soldier opened fire Friday on a man armed with two machetes in an
underground mall close to the world-famous Louvre museum in Paris, French
prosecutors said.
The attacker, who was captured at the scene, was not identified, but later
described him as a 29-year-old Egyptian national who traveled to France from
Dubai on a two-month visa.
Law enforcement found a plane ticket to return to Dubai on Sunday in his
possession, Paris prosecutor Francois Molins said at a news conference.
Earlier, the head of the French capital's police force, Michel Cadot, said
the man shouted "Allahu akbar" — Arabic for "God is great" — during the
incident.
A confrontation ensued around 10 a.m local time (4 a.m. ET) after a four-man
patrol of soldiers told the man he could not proceed into the mall while
carrying two backpacks, officials said.
"That's when he got the knife out and that's when he tried to stab the
soldier," police union official Yves Lefebvre told The Associated Press.
The man rushed at the soldiers, who attempted to fight him off, before one
opened fire on him.
The Carrousel du Louvre mall, where the incident took place, runs underneath
and has an entrance to the museum, which is home to works of art including
the "Mona Lisa."
Image: Police officers take position outside the Louvre museum
Police officers take position outside the Louvre museum in Paris on Friday.
Thibault Camus / AP
"We are dealing with an attack from an individual who was clearly aggressive
and represented a direct threat, and whose comments lead us to believe that
he wished to carry out a terrorist incident," Cadot said.
The soldier fired five shots and the suspect was seriously wounded in the
incident, according to Cadot.
He said that no explosives had been found in the man's baggage. He was found
to have been carrying two machetes.
A spokesman for the military force that patrols key sites in Paris said the
one soldier who was slightly injured by the attacker was not the one who
opened fire.
France's Interior Ministry said that the man was alive when he was pulled
from the scene.
Both the wounded soldier and the attacker are reportedly being treated at a
hospital in central Paris.
Anti-terrorism prosecutors opened an investigation into the incident.
People in the area at the time of the incident described the scene as events
unfolded.
"It was very frantic at first — lots of alarms," Taylor Walstrum, a 20-year
-old junior from the University of Georgia, told NBC News.
"We were led down to a room where we waited for two or three hours. Really
weren't told anything other than the inside of the museum was secure," he
added.
Image: Aftermath of attack near the Louvre museum
French security forces held people inside a Paris mall near the Louvre
museum, after a soldier shot a man armed with a knife. twitter.com/
nonenoone3 / twitter.com/nonenoone3
Walstrum said that he was held with around 150 people in the museum's Mona
Lisa room, before they were patted down and released.
"I was in the open courtyard in front of the glass pyramid entrance," Byron
Hood, 41, told NBC News. "I just saw the armed guards running and the
evacuation tunnels opening."
Hood did not see the attacker.
Police said that a second person who was behaving suspiciously had been
arrested. Officials said the individual did not appear to be connected to
the attack, but that prosecutors would determine if they were involved.
Interior Ministry spokesman Pierre-Henry Brandet told the AP that around 1,
000 people were held inside secure areas of the museum during the incident
for their own safety.
Authorities said they would be released in small groups once they had been
vetted.
French President Francois Hollande reacted to the attacks, saying on Twitter
morning."
In addition, President Donald Trump weighed in on the attack on his personal
Twitter account early Friday. | B*Q
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