Police in France on Saturday arrested an illegal alien from Algeria who is suspected of murdering a man and wounding five others in the city of Mulhouse while shouting “Allahu Akbar,” Arabic for “Allah is the greatest.”
The previous day, police in Germany arrested a Syrian man after he stabbed a tourist from Spain at a Holocaust monument in Berlin, where he reportedly had been looking for Jews to kill.
The 37-year-old suspect in Mulhouse in eastern France was under a deportation order as he had been on a terrorism watch list, the Le Monde newspaper reported. The murdered man was a Portuguese citizen, aged 69, who tried to intervene when he saw the suspect stabbing a police officer in the neck.
The suspect also inflicted serious stab wounds on two police officers who responded to the situation and he lightly injured three other officers. Prosecutors launched a terrorist inquiry after reports of the incident.
French President Emmanuel Macron stated there was “no doubt it was an Islamist terrorist attack,” adding: “I want to reiterate the determination of the government, and mine, to continue the work to eradicate terrorism on our soil.”
The attack occurred in the afternoon near a busy market in Mulhouse, close to the borders with Germany and Switzerland. The police officers had been patrolling a demonstration in support of the Democratic Republic of Congo.
On Friday, German police apprehended a 19-year-old Syrian man suspected of stabbing a Spanish tourist at Berlin’s Holocaust memorial, leaving the victim with life-threatening injuries to his neck.
The victim was placed in an induced coma but was no longer in critical condition, the AFP news agency reported on Saturday.
The suspect had a “plan to kill Jews,” police and prosecutors said.
The suspect was arrested with blood stains on his hands and carrying a Koran and a prayer rug, AFP reported, adding that initial investigations suggested “connections with the Middle East conflict.”
