THIS is the moment a suspected “terrorist” was arrested after cops fiercely tackled him to the ground.
The Algerian man is accused of killing a 69-year-old man and wounding five others in a horror knife rampage in the French town of Mulhouse.
XThis is the moment cops arrested a suspected ‘terrorist’ after a horror knife rampage in France[/caption]
The man, wearing a white bandage, was dragged into a police car by officersTwitter
XHe has been named as 37-year-old Brahim A by Le Figaro[/caption]
The attack unfolded on Saturday afternoon in Mulhouse, near the French-German border.
The knifeman – identified as 37-year-old Brahim A by Le Figaro – launched his sick stabbing spree in a bustling market square while shouting “Allahu Akbar [God is greater]”.
Dramatic footage shared on social media shows officers chasing the suspect down Rue de Lavoisier before restraining him on the road.
Another clip captures him, his head wrapped in a white bandage, being escorted into a police car by heavily armed officers.
Two other people are also in custody, French broadcaster BFMTV reported on Sunday.
‘TERRORIST ACT’
The suspect was reportedly on France’s Terrorist Radicalization Prevention Reporting File (FSPRT).
He had previously been sentenced to six months in prison for posting a social media video calling for jihad, or “holy war”.
On November, 5, 2023, Brahim A recorded himself urging Muslims “to fight for Palestine, to take up arms and to fight the unbelievers,” before attempting to recruit others at a local mosque.
He was arrested hours later, with cops discovering a knife and a Koram under his pillow.
Although sentenced to six months behind bars and banned from French territory for a decade, the attacker was released 50 days early and placed in a detention centre for deportation.
However, Algeria refused to issue a consular pass for his removal – despite French authorities requesting one ten times, the Daily Mail reports.
He remained under house arrest, required to report to police daily, until Saturday’s bloodbath.
French President Emmanuel Macron has since declared the incident “an Islamist terrorist act” and vowed to continue efforts “to eradicate terrorism on our soil.”
HORRIFYING RAMPAGE
The attack began just as the suspect was heading to a police station to sign his house arrest paperwork.
Instead, he pulled out a knife and began stabbing officers and civilians in the crowded market.
An investigating source said: “The man was attending a police station to sign his judicial control form connected with his house arrest.
AFPThe shocking stabbing ramage happened on Saturday afternoon[/caption]
AFPA police investigator at the site of the knife attack in Mulhouse[/caption]
AFPAt least six police officers have been targeted in a horror terrorist attack which has left one dead[/caption]
“He refused to do this, and instead attacked a number of people with a knife.”
Among the victims was a 69-year-old Portuguese man, described by prosecutors as an innocent bystander, who died from multiple stab wounds to his neck.
Two police officers were seriously injured – one suffering a wound to to the carotid artery and another stabbed in the chest — while three more officers sustained minor injuries.
Following the carnage, a heavy police and military presence locked down the market area, with forensic teams combing the scene for evidence.
POLITICAL OUTRAGE
Mulhouse Mayor Michèle Lutz condemned the attack, writing on Facebook: “Horror has gripped our city.”
French Prime Minister Françoise Bayrou added: “Fanaticism has struck again, and we are in mourning.
“My thoughts go to the victims and their families, with the firm hope that the wounded will recover.”
Far-right politicians were quick to slam the government’s handling of radicalisation and deportation failures.
One called the attack a “dramatic reminder that the war against terrorism will not be won with words, but with actions.”
She added: “The State must demonstrate unwavering determination… control our borders, strip jihadists of citizenship, expel radical imams, and sever ties with nations that support fundamentalists.”
French President Emmanuel Macron told reporters the suspect was an ‘Islamist terrorist’EPA
XEmergency services took over the streets following the attack[/caption]
WAVE OF TERROR ATTACKS
Saturday’s horrific rampage follows a string of Islamist attacks in Europe.
On Friday, a Syrian refugee in Berlin allegedly attempted to slit the throat of a Spanish tourist at the Holocaust Memorial.
Days earlier, an Afghan asylum seeker ploughed his car into a crowd of demonstrators in Munich, killing a mother and her two-year-old daughter.
Meanwhile, a 14-year-old boy was stabbed to death last weekend in Austria by a Syrian asylum seeker suspected of Islamic radicalisation.
France, too, has suffered repeated terror attacks.
The deadliest single terrorist attack ever in the country came in November 2015 when 130 people were killed during one night in Paris.
Suicide bombers pledging allegiance to ISIS targeted the Stade de France, cafés, restaurants and the Bataclan music venue, where 90 died.
Earlier in 2015, two Paris-born gunmen linked to Al-Qaeda broke into the offices of the Charlie Hebdo satirical magazine, leaving 17 people dead inside and three outside.
In July 2016, 86 people were called and more than 400 injured when a 19 tonne truck was deliberately driven into crowds on the seafront promenade at Nice, on the Mediterranean coast.
During the same month, two Isis terrorists murdered an 86-year-old Catholic priest during a church service in Normandy.
And in October 2020, three people were stabbed to death by a Tunisian immigrant in the Notre Dame basilica in Nice.
There have been frequent knife attacks on the forces of law and order, leading to the deaths of serving police.
Terrorists have also targeted teachers, such as Samuel Paty, who was decapitated in the greater Paris suburb of Conflans-Sainte-Honorine in 2020.