PARIS, June 14 — The murder of a policeman and his partner in a Paris suburb today adds to the list of members of the French security forces who have been targeted by Islamist militants.
The attacker, identified as Larossi Abballa, claimed allegiance to the Islamic State group after stabbing the officer to death in a western suburb late yesterday.
He then took the victim’s partner and their three-year-old son hostage in the couple’s home, with the woman found dead after a police raid. The child was not hurt.
Following are other attacks against security forces in France:
March 11 and 15, 2012: Self-proclaimed jihadist Mohamed Merah kills three French soldiers, two of whom are Muslim, in Toulouse and Montauban in southern France.
He later attacks a Jewish school on March 19, 2012, where he kills three children and a teacher. Merah is shot dead on March 22 by police.
May 25, 2013: A soldier patrolling the business district of La Defense, west of Paris is injured by Alexandre Dhaussy, 22, a convert to Islam.
Dhaussy is arrested a few days later and claims his motive was religious. A court decides that he suffers from psychiatric problems.
December 20, 2014: Bertrand Nzohabonayo is shot dead as he cries “Allahu akbar” (God is greatest) as he attacks police with a knife in Joue-les-Tours, in central France.
January 8, 2015: Islamist Amedy Coulibaly shoots dead a policewoman in Montrouge, south of Paris, before taking hostages the next day at a kosher supermarket, where he kills four more people. He later dies during a police assault.
Coulibaly was linked to Cherif and Said Kouachi, who attacked the satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo on January 7, 2015 during which 12 people, including two policemen, are killed.
February 3, 2015: Moussa Coulibaly, unrelated to Amedy Coulibaly, uses a knife to attack three soldiers guarding a Jewish community centre in Nice, southern France.
January 7, 2016: A year to the day after the Charlie Hebdo attack, a man identified as Tarek Belgacem tries to attack a police station in Paris with a meat cleaver and a device that turns out to be a fake bomb.
He is shot dead by police, who find a pledge of allegiance to the Islamic State group on his body. — AFP
