Attack on church worshippers: France's tryst with a wave of Islamist violence since 2015

Since Charlie Hebdo in 2015, there has been at least eight terror attacks

paris-afp Police officers stand ready near Paris prefecture de police (police headquarters) on October 3, 2019 after four officers were killed in a knife attack | AFP

A young Tunisian man armed with a knife, and reportedly carrying a copy of the Holy Quran, attacked worshippers in a French church and killed three on Thursday, prompting the government to raise its security alert to the maximum level hours before a nationwide coronavirus lockdown. The attack in Mediterranean city of Nice was the third in less than two months that French authorities have attributed to Islamist extremists, including the beheading of a teacher who had shown caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad in class after the images were re-published by a satirical newspaper targeted in a 2015 attack.

Since the Charlie Hebdo massacre, there have been at least eight terror attacks that France has attributed to Islamists. In 2015, a satirical newspaper and a kosher supermarket in Paris were targeted, marking the beginning of a wave of violence by the Islamic State group in Europe. Seventeen people and all three gunmen died during the three days of attacks.

Later that year, a separate network of French and Belgian fighters for IS struck Paris again, this time killing 130 people in attacks at the Bataclan concert hall, the national stadium, and in bars and restaurants. 

Bataclan concert hall massacre: In November 2015, nine jihadists armed with assault rifles and explosives struck outside the national stadium during a France-Germany football match, and later at streetside cafes and the Bataclan concert hall. Ninety people were killed at the Bataclan alone, and more than 350 wounded overall. The Islamic State claimed responsibility for the killings, in which eight of the attackers died, seven in their own suicide bombings. The same jihadist cell suspected of carrying out the Paris attacks is also believed to have struck the airport and metro system of Brussels in March 2016, killing 32 people.

Bastille Day attack in Nice: In July 2016, a truck ploughed into a crowd in the French city of Nice, killing at least 80 people in what then president Francois Hollande called a “terrorist” attack on revellers watching a Bastille Day fireworks display. Islamic State claimed responsibility. 

Father Jacques Hamel's murder: Less than a few weeks after the Nice attack, an elderly French priest was slain by Islamist militants in a church in Normandy. Rev. Jacques Hamel, 85, died after his throat was slit as he celebrated Mass.

Champs-Elysees attack: In April 2017, a gunman shoots and kills a police officer on Paris' Champs-Elysees in an attack claimed by the Islamic State group.

Notre Dame attack: In June 2017, an Algerian man wielding a hammer attacks police officers patrolling in front of Notre Dame Cathedral. He had declared his allegiance to the Islamic State.

Trebes attack: At least three people were killed in a shooting spree and hostage siege in southern France by a man claiming allegiance to the Islamic State group in March 2018. Security forces killed the gunman—believed to be a Moroccan who was on a watchlist of suspected Islamist extremists —after he carried out three separate attacks in the medieval town of Carcassonne and nearby Trebes. The man first hijacked a car in Carcassonne, killing a passenger and injuring the driver, before shooting a policeman who was out jogging with his colleagues nearby. He then drove to a Super U supermarket in the sleepy town of Trebes and holed up there for more than three hours with hostages, killing at least two people.

Charlie Hebdo offices attack: French terrorism authorities are investigating a knife attack that wounded at least two people near the former offices of the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo in Paris in September this year. A suspect has been arrested. It is unclear what motivated the attack or whether it was linked to Charlie Hebdo, which moved after its offices were targeted in a 2015 attacks.

Samuel Paty murder: In October, history teacher Samuel Paty was decapitated in the Paris suburbs. He had previously showed cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad in a class on freedom of expression. The attacker, Moscow-born Chechen refugee Abdullakh Anzorov, 18, was shot dead by police. France's president Emmanuel Macron called it an Islamist terror strike. 

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