Assailant wielding machete, shouting ‘Allahu akbar’ stopped by soldier, police say
(FOX)- A group of four French soldiers were attacked Friday inside a shopping mall beneath the Louvre Museum in Paris by a machete-wielding man shouting “Allahu akbar,” authorities said.
One of the soldiers suffered minor injuries and the attacker was gravely wounded. A military spokesman said the soldiers tried to fight off the assailant before opening fire.
One soldier opened fire, gravely wounding the attacker.
“He is wounded in the stomach,” said police chief Michel Cadot. “He is conscious and he was moving.”
The soldier who was slightly injured was not the soldier who opened fire, according to authorities.
A police union official said the attacker was carrying two backpacks and had two machetes. He said the man launched himself at the soldiers when they told him that he couldn’t bring his bags into the Carrousel du Louvre shopping mall underneath the world-famous museum where the “Mona Lisa” hangs and which went into emergency lock-down.