Paris knife attack: Seven wounded including two British tourists

From AFP via the French edition of The Local and the Sun

Seven people including two British tourists were wounded in Paris late Sunday by a knife-wielding man, a terrifying attack that bystanders tried to stop by throwing petanque balls at the assailant.

Four of the victims were in a critical condition, police said, after the man brandishing a large blade and and iron bar went on the rampage next to a canal in the northeast of the capital.   

The suspect is believed to be an Afghan national and has been arrested, said a source close to the enquiry, adding he had targeted “strangers” but that “nothing at this stage shows signs of a terrorist nature”.

A suspect, reportedly of Pakistani or Afghan origin and using child identity documents issued to an Afghan minor, began “slashing passers-by” on the Loire Quay in the north of the city, according to reports.

The knifeman, who was also armed with a metal bar, first stabbed two men and a woman outside the MK2 cinema complex. He then proceeded to a nearby street, where he attacked two British tourists, according to investigators. One was particularly badly hurt after being “stabbed in the head”,  while the other was “cut in the chest”.

An investigating source said the suspect was conscious in hospital but had not not spoken since the attack. The attacker is reported to be in his 30s, and previously known to police. An attempted murder case has been launched by judicial police, with Paris prosecutors opening an official enquiry, according to Le Parisien.