News / France

Two killed in France shooting attack, one wounded

Saturday, 25 June 2016 4:55 AM [ Last Update: Saturday, 25 June 2016 4:55 AM ]

Forensic police officers investigate the crime scene after two men were shot dead in a car in the city of Marseille, southern France, June 25, 2016. (Photo by AFP)

Two men are killed and a female teenager is seriously wounded in a rifle assault in the southern French port city of Marseille.

The assailant or assailants and the victims of the early Saturday attack are yet to be identified by name. French media outlets have only disclosed that those who were fatally shot were both 30 years of age and have described the wounded girl from the strike as a 14-year-old.

Kalashnikov rifles were used in the attack. It is not clear if the attack was of a terrorist nature. There have been shooting attacks associated with organized crime in the city before. Six people have been shot dead since the start of the year in such attacks.

Police Commissioner Laurent Nunez said two of the victims were inside a car and the teenager was accidentally passing by at the time of the attack.

Policemen block access as forensic police officers investigate the crime scene after two men were shot dead in a car in the city of Marseille, southern France, June 25, 2016. (Photo by AFP)

Last October, three people were killed in a shooting incident in Marseille in what appeared to be a drug-related attack.

Reacting to the attack, French Prime Minister Manuel Valls said back then that nothing could stop the “determination of the state to fight organized crime.”

The French Interior Ministry said at the time that it has broken up as many as 10 drug networks, arrested 132 individuals, and seized 1.5 tons of cannabis and 39 kilograms of cocaine in the city since the beginning of 2015.

Also late last year, Interior Minister Bernard Cazenueve vowed a crackdown and said 6,000 weapons a year were being seized from criminal groups in Marseille, of which 1,200 were combat rifles and other weapons of war.

France has seen terrorist attacks in the recent past, too. On November 13, 2015, the Takfiri terrorist group of Daesh launched a series of attacks in Paris, killing some 130 people. In January that year, Daesh terrorists struck the French satirical Charlie Hebdo offices in the French capital, killing 12 people.

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