A vehicle-ramming attack on soldiers in suburban Paris highlighted ongoing jihadist threats to French security forces.
Key Facts
- Date
- 9 August 2017
- Soldiers injured
- 6 (3 seriously)
- Suspect
- Hamou Benlatrèche, 36-year-old Algerian national
- Charges filed
- Terrorism charges, 23 August 2017
- Sentence
- 30 years in prison
By the Numbers
Location
Cause → Event → Consequence
Hamou Benlatrèche, described by French prosecutors as holding radical beliefs and showing interest in the Islamic State group, deliberately targeted soldiers conducting patrols under Opération Sentinelle, France's ongoing military security operation deployed following earlier terrorist attacks.
On the morning of 9 August 2017, Benlatrèche drove a car into a group of six soldiers patrolling in Levallois-Perret, a northwestern suburb of Paris. He then fled the scene before being shot and arrested by an elite police unit hours later on a highway near Marquise, Pas-de-Calais, after attempting to ram a roadblock.
French prosecutors charged Benlatrèche with terrorism offenses on 23 August 2017. He was subsequently convicted and sentenced to 30 years in prison. The attack was classified as terrorist-related and added to a pattern of jihadist vehicle-ramming attacks targeting Western countries.