One dead, two in critical condition after Paris knife attack

From the Telegraph, The French edition of The Local, the Mirror and the Daily Mail

A shoeless knifeman randomly stabbed four people – killing one of them – in a possible terror attack in a Paris park …in the Paris suburb of Villejuif …before he was shot dead by armed police.  

Police shot dead the assailant, who has not been identified.The motive is still unknown. The attacker apparently stabbed people at random in the Hautes-Bruyères park, which was packed with families and children during the school holidays. He stabbed two people before he entered the park. . .  the attacker was shot dead by police in a neighbouring suburb.

It appeared the knifeman was wearing an explosives vest, but his body was “clear of explosives” when it was inspected by a bomb disposal team, an investigating source said.

The person who was fatally stabbed was a local man who died trying to protect his wife, it was reported.

Police cordoned off the area as they checked for possible accomplices.

Loïc Travers, a police union spokesman, said: “No one can be sure at this stage whether this was a terrorist act.” 

The number two at the interior ministry, Laurent Nunez, travelled to the scene of the stabbings accompanied by Paris police chief Didier Lallement.

The attacker’s motives are currently unknown.

That the knifeman was not wearing shoes is confirmed by several newspapers. The Mirror earlier said he was wearing a djellaba robe but that sentence was removed from updates. It remains in local newspaper Valeurs.

L’homme, de type européen, portait une djellaba et une barbe et aurait crié “Allah Akbar”

Which suggests a jihad attack to me. 

Witnesses told local media the attacker was yelling ‘Allahu Akbar’ as he launched the assault in the Hautes-Bruyères park in the suburb of Villejuif shortly after 2pm on Friday.