A driver shouting “Allahu Akbar” ploughed into pedestrians in eastern France on Sunday, injuring 11 of them, just a day after a man yelling the same words was killed in an attack on police officers.
Two of the people injured in the car attack in the city of Dijon were in a serious condition, a police source said, adding that the driver had been arrested.
“The man, born in 1974, is apparently unbalanced and had been in a psychiatric hospital,” a source close to the investigation said, adding that “for now his motives are still unclear”.
The man had targeted groups of passersby at five different locations in the city on Sunday evening in a rampage that lasted around half an hour, the police source said.
“Nine people were slightly injured and two others seriously but their lives do not appear to be in danger,” the source added.
Witnesses told police that the driver shouted “Allahu Akbar” and “that he was acting for the children of Palestine”, a source close to the investigation said.
Police sources said the driver was known to police for petty offences dating back to the 1990s.
Prime Minister Manuel Valls took to Twitter to express “solidarity” with those injured in the attack.
France is still reeling from a suspected radical Islamic attack on Saturday that saw a French convert to Islam shot dead after attacking police officers with a knife while also reportedly crying “Allahu Akbar” in the central town of Joue-les-Tours.
The assailant, Burundi-born French national, Bertrand Nzohabonayo seriously injured two officers — slashing one in the face — and hurting another.
The 20-year-old attacker also cried “Allahu Akbar” during the assault, said a source close to the case speaking on condition of anonymity.
The assault prompted the government to step up security at police and fire stations nationwide.
Nzohabonayo had previously committed petty offences but was not on a domestic intelligence watch-list although his brother is known for his radical views and once pondered going to Syria, the source said.
The anti-terror branch of the Paris prosecutor’s office has opened a probe into that attack.
The weekend incidents in France come as governments around the world brace for so-called “lone wolf” attacks by individuals following Islamic State group calls for violence in the countries involved in a coalition fighting the militants in Iraq and Syria.The group has repeatedly singled out France for such attacks, most recently in a video posted on jihadist sites this week.
