It’s no surprise that a Muslim would try something stupid, especially in a city like Paris, on the anniversary of the attacks on the Charlie Hebdo magazine offices. Yet here we are.
Earlier today, an Islamic extremist, dressed with what looked like explosives, charged into a police station with a gun, shouting “Allahu Akbar”, a chant that means “God is great” – a common occurrence before they become martyrs. Well, it turns out he got his wish because French police shot him like the rabid dog he was.
CNN reports,
Paris, a city on edge after weathering a year of jihadist violence, faced a fresh scare Thursday as police shot and killed a cleaver-wielding man on the anniversary of the Charlie Hebdo attacks.
French authorities said the man with the weapon was shot as he attempted to enter a police station in the northern Paris neighborhood of Barbes.
The man was shouting “Allahu Akbar,” Interior Ministry spokesman Pierre-Henry Brandet told CNN affiliate BFMTV.
He wore a pouch of what appeared to be explosives, but it turned out to be fake, Paris prosecutor’s spokeswoman Agnes Thibault-Lecuivre told CNN.
Parisians are also accepting these sorts of attacks as becoming a part of day-to-day life, even if they are failing more often than not:
Caroline Fourest, former journalist at Charlie Hebdo, responded like many Parisians with weary resignation to Thursday’s attempt — a reflection that such incidents had become “the new normal” in France over the past year.
“We know that ISIL or al Qaeda is encouraging (such attacks) in Europe, not only in France,” she told CNN, using another name for ISIS. “So we’re fortunate to see when those attacks are failing.”
Europe was “just at the beginning” of weathering the threat from jihadism, she said.
“We know that it’s going to be this way for the next years as long as the people who are giving orders from Syria are not disconnected.”
(Source: CNN)