France church attack: What we know and what we don't

NEW DELHI: A woman was beheaded by an attacker with a knife who also killed two other people at a

church

in the French city of

Nice

on Thursday, police said, in an incident the city's mayor described as "terrorism".


Mayor

Christian Estrosi

said on Twitter the knife attack had happened in or near the city's Notre Dame church and that police had detained the attacker.

Within hours of the Nice attack, police killed a man who had threatened passersby with a handgun in Montfavet, near the southern French city of Avignon. Police said earlier that several others were injured but added that the death toll is not expected to rise.

What we know so far about the attack:

* French anti-terrorism prosecutors are investigating the knife attack at the church in the Mediterranean city of Nice.

* The assailant was arrested after the Thursday morning attack at the Notre Dame Church and taken to a nearby hospital after being injured during his arrest, a police official said.

* He was believed to be acting alone and police are not searching for other assailants, the official said. The anti-terrorism prosecutor's office said an investigation was opened into an attack with a terrorist connection.

* Nice Mayor Christian Estrosi said the attacker shouted "Allahu Akbar!" repeatedly as police apprehended him and that "the meaning of his gesture left no doubt."

* The knifeman called himself "Brahim" and said he was 25, according to a judicial source. Police are yet to officially identify him.

*

France

has raised the security alert for French territory to the highest level after the knife attack. Castex also told French National Assembly that the government's response to the attack would be firm and implacable.

* It was not immediately clear if Thursday's attack was connected to the cartoons, which Muslims consider to be blasphemous.

* One of the man killed was the church's sacristan, a 45-year-old layman, according to Canon Philippe Asso, the church's most senior cleric.

* Images on French media showed the neighborhood locked down and surrounded by police and emergency vehicles. Police armed with automatic weapons had put up a security cordon around the church, which is on Nice's Jean Medecin avenue, the city's main shopping thoroughfare. Ambulances and fire service vehicles were also at the scene.

* The lower house of parliament suspended a debate on new virus restrictions and held a moment of silence Thursday for the victims.

* The French Council of the Muslim Faith condemned the Nice attack and called on French Muslims to refrain from festivities this week marking the birth of Muhammed "as a sign of mourning and in solidarity with the victims and their loved ones."

* The exact motive of the attack was unclear but comes as France is under alert for Islamic extremist acts amid tensions over caricatures of the Muslim

Prophet Muhammad

published by satirical French weekly Charlie Hebdo, and after two other recent attacks in France with links to the cartoons.

(With inputs from agencies)