PARIS: An assailant opened fire on a police officer on the southern edge of Paris early Thursday, killing her and injuring a nearby street sweeper before fleeing, officials and a witness said. Frances Interior Minister cautioned against jumping to conclusions a day after the deadly assault on a satirical newspaper that killed 12 people.
The attacker in the pre-dawn shooting on Thursday remained at large, said French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve. It was not immediately clear whether the attack was linked to the assault on the newspaper Charlie Hebdo, in which two police officers were among the dead.
In the Thursday shooting, Mr. Cazeneuve said, the officer had stopped to investigate a traffic accident when the firing started. Paris police said the second victim was a street sweeper. The officer later died of her injuries, said Emmanuel Cravello of the Alliance police union.
There was an officer in front of a white car and a man running away who shot, said Ahmed Sassi, who saw the shooting from his home nearby.
Mr. Sassi said the shooter wore dark clothes but no mask. It didnt look like a big gun because he held it with one hand, Mr. Sassi said.
Mr. Cazeneuve left an emergency government meeting to travel to the scene of the latest shooting. France is on its highest level of alert after the deadly attacks at Charlie Hebdos central Paris offices.
Several attacks against Muslim targets
Muslim places of worship in two French towns were fired upon overnight, leaving no casualties, prosecutors said on Thursday.
Three blank grenades were thrown at a mosque shortly after midnight in the city of Le Mans, west of Paris. A bullet hole was also found in a window of the mosque.
In the Port-la-Nouvelle district near Narbonne in southern France, several shots were fired in the direction of a Muslim prayer hall shortly after evening prayers. The hall was empty, the local prosecutor said.
An explosion at a kebab shop near a mosque in the eastern French town of Villefranche-sur-Saone on Thursday morning also left no casualties. Local prosecutors have described it as a “criminal act”.
Charlie Hebdo attack suspects spotted
Meanwhile, two brothers suspected of having gunned down 12 people in the attack on satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo were spotted on Thursday morning and are armed, sources close to the manhunt said.
The manager of a petrol station near Villers-Cotteret in the northern Aisne region “recognised the two men suspected of having participated in the attack against Charlie Hebdo”, the source said.
France observes minute of silence
Bells rang out, Paris public transport stood still and children sat silent as France mourned the 12 people killed in Wednesdays attack.
French President Francois Hollande ordered flags at half-staff and a moment of silence Thursday to honor the victims of the attack on Charlie Hebdo, which had caricatured the Prophet Muhammad. Witnesses said the attackers claimed allegiance to al-Qaeda.
Onlookers wept while listening to bells peal at Paris Notre Dame Cathedral. The rector of the Paris Mosque called on Muslims to observe the moment of silence and honor victims of this exceptional violence.
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