Car ploughs into police van in fresh Paris attack

PanARMENIAN.Net - A 31-year-old man on a jihadist watchlist rammed a car loaded with guns and a gas bottle into a police van on the Champs-Elysees Monday, June 19 but inflicted no casualties, in the latest of a string of attacks in Paris, sources said, according to AFP.

The assailant died in the incident, although investigators offered no immediate details about the cause. There has been no claim of responsibility for the assault.

The attack -- which occurred just a short distance from where a jihadist shot dead a police officer two months earlier -- was carried out by a man who had been on France's security watchlist since 2015 over ties to "the radical Islamist movement", sources close to the probe said.

They identified him as Adam Dzaziri, who had been raised in the hardline Salafi Islamic ideology, and did not have a criminal record.

Interior Minister Gerard Collomb said a car hit the leading vehicle in a line of police vans as they headed down the Champs-Elysees, near the Grand Palais exhibition hall.

"The security forces have been targeted in France once again," he said.

Ministry spokesman Pierre-Henry Brandet said the car, a white Renault Megane, caught fire.

Video showed a thick orange smoke pouring from the car after the impact as the vehicle sat in the middle of the prestigious avenue which is lined with shops and cinemas.

Police sources told AFP that they found a Kalashnikov assault rifle, two handguns, ammunition as well as a gas bottle in the car.

The "arms, explosives... could potentially blow this car up," Collomb said. Sources previously told AFP that there were multiple gas bottles in the car.

No police or bystanders were injured in the incident, which occurred near the Grand Palais exhibition hall.