France deploys 7k soldiers after teacher’s slay

ARRAS, France—France on Saturday said it will deploy 7,000 soldiers after declaring a top-level alert following the fatal stabbing of a teacher by a Chechen-origin man, who also severely wounded three others at a school.

The attack took place in the northeastern town of Arras, home to large Jewish and Muslim populations.

Police arrested the suspected attacker, Mohammed Moguchkov, who had cried the Arabic phrase “Allahu akbar!” (God is greatest), according to the preliminary elements of the investigation.

Authorities have suggested a probable link to the ongoing violence in the Middle East, with President Emmanuel Macron denouncing the incident as an act of “Islamist terror”.

The deployment of the soldiers from Operation Sentinelle will be completed by Monday evening, according to the Elysee presidential palace.

Sentinelle is a French military operation with 10,000 soldiers and 4,700 police and gendarmes deployed since the aftermath of the January 2015 attacks to protect parts of the country deemed sensitive from terrorism.

“This school was struck by the barbarity of Islamist terrorism,” Macron said after visiting the school, adding that the victim had “probably saved many lives” with his courage in blocking the attacker.

Macron said another attempted attack in another region had been foiled by security forces.

According to the interior ministry, the president was referring to the arrest of a “radicalised” man who was arrested leaving a prayer hall in the Yvelines region of Paris for carrying a prohibited weapon.

Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin later said there was “probably a link between what’s happening in the Middle East and this incident” in Arras.

France upped its alert level to the highest position following a crunch security meeting chaired by Macron on Friday, the prime minister’s office told AFP.

A total of eight people were in police custody on Friday, a police source said.

In addition to the attacker, several members of his family were arrested “for the purposes of the investigation”, including one of his brothers and his sister, other police sources said.

The national anti-terrorist prosecutor announced that it has opened an investigation.

Moguchko