Monday, January 11, 2016

France: A Muslim teenager armed with a machete slashed a Jewish teacher in a Marseille street, invoking the Islamic State group and saying that he had also planned to go after police

The 15-year-old Turkish Kurd was arrested soon after wordlessly attacking the teacher, who was injured in the attack in central Marseille, said Brice Robin, the Marseille prosecutor. The teen invoked Allah and the extremist group saying that "the Muslims of France dishonor Islam and the French army protects Jews". The anti-terrorism section of the Paris prosecutor's office has taken over the investigation. The Muslim teen attacked the teacher from behind, slashing him in the shoulder, and then went after him again as he tried to flee. The attack comes days after a Muslim armed with a butcher's knife was shot dead after he went after police in central Paris. That man's identity has not yet been confirmed but German authorities say that he had lived at a shelter for asylum-seekers in the western city of Recklinghausen. Both incidents coincide with high tension in France, which recently marked a year since the January 2015 Islamist attacks against the Charlie Hebdo newspaper and a kosher supermarket that left 17 people dead. Recently, two churches were burned.

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