French police identify Paris knife attacker as Chechnya-born French citizen

The aftermath of a knife attack in the opera district of Paris

(Image credit: Geoffroy van der Hasselt/Getty Images)

published 13 May 2018

The suspect who killed one person and wounded four more in a knife attack in Paris on Saturday was identified Sunday by French police as Khamzat Asimov, a French national who was born in Russia's Chechnya region.

Asimov, 21, shouted "Allahu akbar" as he attacked pedestrians near the Paris Opera, and his violence has been claimed by the Islamic State. Already on a French watchlist before the attack, he was fatally shot by police at the scene of the crime. Asimov's parents reportedly have been detained for questioning.

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Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.

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