A man wielding a knife and wearing a fake suicide-bomb belt has been shot dead at a police station in Paris on the anniversary of the Charlie Hebdo shootings.
The suspect had allegedly tried to break into the precinct in the multi-ethnic, fast-gentrifying Barbés area of the 18th arrondissement in the north of Paris. The incident occurred shortly after French president François Hollande promised 5,000 extra police posts to strengthen the country’s security after a stream of Islamist terror attacks.
An Interior Ministry spokesman said the man shouted “Allahu Akbar!” (“God is great”) and tried to attack a police officer at the reception of the station before he was shot dead outside. The spokesperson suggests he may have been wearing a suicide belt, but a police source later said it was a fake (link in French).
A police robot was on site to inspect body, alongside an explosives squad. The area has been sealed off, with local residents told to close their windows and keep off their balconies.
A year ago, gunmen stormed into the offices of satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo over cartoons it made of the Islamic prophet Mohammed, killing 12 twelve and wounding five. In November, Paris suffered six nearly simultaneous attacks that left at least 128 people dead and around 300 wounded.