French Police Shoot ‘Allahu Akbar’ Knifeman

French police shot a knifeman in the leg on Sunday, one of three police shootings in response to allegedly “Allahu Akbar” shouting knifemen in Europe in three days.

Officers were called to the scene after a man was seen walking out of a shop carrying a knife in the north-eastern French town of Metz on Sunday afternoon. The responding officers were threatened by the suspect when they arrived and attempted to attack with a knife, which the French prosecutor is investigating as attempted murder.

The suspect was fired upon and injured, being transferred to a hospital in police custody. His injuries are reportedly not life-threatening.

French newspaper Le Figaro reports the alleged attacker cried “Allahu Akbar” [Allah/God is greater] during the incident, and that he had an entry in the so-called ‘S’ file — the French government’s database of known extremists.

The attack follows another in France just two days before, when Paris police shot another man — a European Muslim convert according to claims — who reportedly shouted the Islamist war-cry “Allahu Akbar” as he stabbed members of the public, killing one. He, in turn, was killed by police gunfire.

On Sunday, another startlingly similar attack took place across the border in Germany, where police shot dead another knifeman who also was reported to shout “Allahu Akbar” as he charged officers. The Turkish citizen had previously been investigated by police for violent crimes. That attack followed a review of the nation’s counter-terror status in the wake of the killing of Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani in Iraq, which was reckoned to increase the risk of Islamist revenge attacks in Europe.

Radical Islamic terrorism has become an increasingly present feature of urban European life in the past decade. A 2019 study found radical Islamic terrorist attacks have accounted for 91 per cent of all terrorism-related deaths in Europe since the year 2000, finding 753 people had died in terror attacks between 2000 and 2018. A further 1,115 Europeans had been killed in terror attacks while abroad from Europe in that time, mainly while serving in the military or while holidaying as tourists, but were not counted in the headline figure.