The radical Islamist who allegedly killed a German-Filipino tourist and injured two others near the Eiffel Tower in Paris was reportedly in contact with other infamous Muslim terrorists, was on the government’s extremism watchlist, and previously served time in prison for attempted murder.
Armand Rajabpour-Miyandoab, 26, the suspected ‘Allahu Akbar’ knifeman behind the latest terror attack in France on Saturday, has been linked to other Islamist terrorists, including Abdoullakh Anzorov, who beheaded schoolteacher Samuel Paty in 2020 over a class on blasphemy that featured a caricature of the Muslim prophet Muhammed.
The Center for the Analysis of Terrorism (CAT) think tank told the Le Figaro newspaper that they have information demonstrating contact between Rajabpour-Miyandoab and Paty’s assassin, as well as Adel Kermiche, the Islamist who had murdered 85-year-old priest Jacques Hamel in 2016 at in front of three nuns and other parishioners.
The Paris attacker, who was known to authorities for having ties to radical Islam and had an ‘S-File’ for potential extremism, was also reportedly in contact Larossi Abbala, who killed police officer Jean-Baptiste Salvaing and his partner Vanessa Schneider in Magnanville in 2016.
Furthermore, Rajabpour-Miyandoab was also said to have contacted Maximilien Thibaut, a French jihadist who left for Syria and a former member of the Forsane Alizza Islamist terror group which called for the establishment of a “caliphate” in France and planned an attack on the La Défense business district outside of Paris. Rajabpour-Miyandoab was himself previously imprisoned for four years for planning a stabbing in the very same area.
Armand Rajabpour-Miyandoab was born in France to Iranian parents in 1997 under the name Imam Rajabpour-Miyandoab but later had his name changed to the French name of Armand.
In addition to arresting Rajabpour-Miyandoab, French police have detained three other “members of the entourage” in connection to the attack that saw a German-Filipino tourist stabbed to death. The two other victims of the attack who were injured with a hammer are “in good health,” according to Minister of Health Aurélien Rousseau.
“They had superficial trauma but obviously psychological trauma which will be immense, like the people who accompanied the victim who unfortunately died from a stab wound,” Rousseau said.
Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin revealed on Saturday that the Islamist terrorist was motivated by Palestinian and Afghani Muslims dying, while blaming France for being “complicit” in Israel’s military actions against Hamas terrorists in the Gaza Strip. A video purportedly filmed by the terrorist prior to the attack saw him declare that he was “a supporter of the caliphate of the Islamic State”.
Darmanin also claimed that Rajabpour-Miyandoab had been “under psychiatric and neurological treatment” but had stopped taking his medications a few months ago.
Pedestrians walk past flowers where a tourist was stabbed to death on the eve, near the Eiffel Tower (background), in Paris, on December 3, 2023. (Photo by Dimitar DILKOFF / AFP) (Photo by DIMITAR DILKOFF/AFP via Getty Images)
The attack on Saturday was the second terror killing in France since the October 7th Hamas strikes on Israel. The death of the German-Filipino tourist represented the 274th person to have been killed by Islamic terrorism in the country since 2012.
National Rally president Jordan Bardella blamed the interior minister for failing to keep the French public safe, saying: “Gérald Darmanin’s weakness in protecting the French people leads to these tragedies and these deaths.”
“I deplore that the tragedies are repeated one after the other with systematically the same situations, the same individuals, the same profiles. The alleged perpetrator of this terrorist attack in the heart of Paris which killed a German tourist was not only listed for radicalisation but was released from prison.
“We must put the debate on security detention back on the table, I think it is time to stop the words. I’m tired of commenting on drama after drama on the same facts.”