Authorities in Paris are searching for a driver who slammed his BMW into a group of soldiers in a Paris suburb Wednesday. Six of the soldiers were injured after what appeared to be a carefully timed ambush before the driver drove away.
Officials have revealed that he deliberately aimed at the soldiers. The counterterrorism authorities have opened an investigation into the incident. The attack is the latest targeting security forces guarding France over the past year.
Major attacks have targeted prominent sites like the Eiffel Tower, Wednesday's attack hit a leafy, relatively affluent suburb that is home to France's main intelligence service.
Reports from the Defense ministry indicate that three of the soldiers suffered light injuries while three were more seriously injured, but their lives are not in danger.
The soldiers are from the 35th infantry regiment and they served in Operation Sentinelle, created to guard prominent French sites after a string of deadly Islamic extremist attacks in 2015.
The witnesses who saw the attack described seeing a BMW with one person inside waiting in a cul-de-sac near a building used for Sentinelle soldiers. One official said the attacker hit just as a group of soldiers emerged from the building to board vehicles for a new shift.
The surveillance footage in the area is being checked by authorities, the incident took place near the city hall of Levallois, northwest of Paris. Four hours after the incident, a police spokeswoman said, "verifications are still underway" and that police had not definitively identified the vehicle.
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