A car rammed into a group of French soldiers Wednesday in a suburb of Paris, injuring six of them in what authorities say was a deliberate attack.
The incident happened as the soldiers left their barracks in Levallois-Perret to go on patrol. Mayor Patrick Balkany said “without a doubt” the attack was intentional.
“The vehicle did not stop,” Balkany said. “It hurtled at them … it accelerated rapidly.”
Authorities were searching for the driver of the car, while the Paris prosecutor’s office said it has opened a counterterrorism investigation.
The attack follows a series of other Islamic State-inspired strikes on soldiers and police, large numbers of whom have been deployed in France in response to IS calls for attacks against France and other countries that have bombed IS positions in Iraq and Syria.
All told, more than 230 people, mainly civilians, have been killed in attacks inspired by the militant group over the past two years, including two 2015 attacks in Paris and another in the coastal city of Nice in mid-2016.