Suspects arrested in French capital after stabbing attack: Police

Police in France have arrested two suspects after a stabbing attack outside the former offices of the Charlie Hebdo magazine in the country’s capital, Paris.

An unnamed Paris police source said on Friday that one of the suspects was Pakistani and the other was Algerian.

Earlier on Friday, two journalists were stabbed near the French weekly’s former offices in Paris. The attack took place three weeks into the trial of the individuals accused of being accomplices in the 2015 terrorist attack on the magazine’s offices.

TV footage showed ambulances, fire trucks, and police cordoning off the area around Charlie Hebdo’s former offices.

Paris police said two people had been “critically wounded” in the Friday attack and an anti-terror investigation had been opened. But it was not immediately clear if the attack was related to the magazine.

“The government is… determined with all its means to fight terrorism,” said French Prime Minister Jean Castex, who rushed to the scene.

In January 2015, two men barged into the magazine’s Paris offices, killing 12 people, many of whom worked for the publication. The attack, condemned by Muslims across the world, was allegedly a response to the magazine’s offensive cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) a few years earlier.

The terrorists in that attack were French-born brothers Cherif and Said Kouachi. They claimed the attacks in the name of al-Qaeda. Both were killed in police raids at the time.

But 14 suspected accomplices are standing trial for abetting the attackers.

Press TV’s website can also be accessed at the following alternate addresses:

www.presstv.co.uk