PARIS (Reuters) - A knife attack in central Paris last night was a French citizen born in Chechnya in 1997, judicial sources said on Sunday.
According to witnesses and the prosecutor in Paris, the attacker grew up stabbing passersby, killing one and injuring four others in the busy Opera district of central Paris at about 9:30 pm before the police shot him.
A judicial source said police were holding and interrogating the 21-year-old's father.
Another source close to the investigation said law enforcement officials in France were classifying the attacker as a threat to national security.
Interior Minister Gerard Colom told reporters the injured were no longer in serious condition.
"I saw the woman who was seriously injured, she is recovering and undergoing surgery," he said after visiting the injured in the hospital.
France is on high alert after being subjected to a series of attacks by the so-called "Islamic State" or its most influential perpetrators. The attacks have killed more than 240 people since 2015.
President Emmanuel Macaron said shortly after the attack that France "will not back down in the face of the enemies of freedom." He praised the police for "neutralizing the terrorist".
"I will kill you, I will kill you," Rocco Continto, representative of the police union, told Reuters. The police then shot him.
The attack took place in the heart of Paris in an area frequented by tourists for its many restaurants, cafés, shops and Paris Opera House.
A picture taken by Reuters showed it, and a source said it was the attacker, a young man with no chest, a beard and black trousers. A source told Reuters the attacker had never been known to the police.
The Islamic State Organization claimed responsibility for the attack through Deep News, but gave no evidence.
Authorities have yet to reveal the identity of the victim, but the source said he was a 29-year-old man.
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