Police in France have arrested a third suspect in connection with a deadly terror attack in Nice, CBS News’ Imtiaz Tyab reports. The country has raised its security alert to the highest level amid recent killings.
Authorities say a suspected terrorist stabbed and killed three people inside the Notre Dame Basilica on Thursday, just two weeks after a teacher was beheaded in a Paris suburb.
The stabbing suspect, named Ibrahim Issaoui according to investigators, is a 21-year-old Tunisian national who entered Europe just over a month ago. He is now in critical condition after being shot by police.
A 35-year-old man was arrested overnight, the Associated Press reported, citing a judicial official. That suspect had met with Issaoui in Nice. Another man, 47, was already in custody. Officials say he was in contact with Issaoui the night before he went on his stabbing spree.
French President Emmanuel Macron has denounced the killings as an “Islamist terrorist attack.”
There have been three separate assaults since September connected to cartoons depicting the Muslim Prophet Muhammad that were first published in 2015 by the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo — and were republished again this September.
The images, seen as a gratuitous insult to Islam, have sparked protests across several Muslim nations. Much of the fury is pointed directly at France President Emmanuel Macron, whose defense of the crude caricatures, as part of France’s secular values, has opened him up to accusations of deliberately stoking anti-Muslim sentiment for political gain.
Macron’s approval ratings are low, and with an election just under two years away critics say he is pandering to his country’s politically potent far right for support. The strategy may have backfired internationally, but seems to be winning influence at home, despite the enormous cost.
Macron has more than doubled the number of troops on the streets of France, with many fearing the latest violence may only be the beginning.
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