MACHETE ATTACK AT THE LOUVRE MUSEUM IN PARIS

Three French soldiers secure a shopping arcade at the famous Louvre museum. At their feet lies the wounded Islamist who had attacked them moments earlier with a 40cm machete. Only their fast reaction prevented something worse, in a country that had been hit by terrorist attacks year after year.Since 2012, not a year has passed in France without an Islamist attack. Soldiers became targets of the self-appointed holy warriors as well. After the attack on Charlie Hebdo and the hostage-taking at the Porte de Vincennes in the spring of 2015, which left 17 people dead, France raised its terror alert to the highest level and mobilized 10,000 soldiers at home. That turned out to be a good decision, because the deployed soldiers went on to stop several attacks.

February 3, 2017, was one of those days. Abdullah Reda al-Hamamy tried to get into the Louvre museum with two 40cm machetes and several spray cans in his backpack. In the Carrousel du Louvre, an underground shopping arcade right at the museum, 4 soldiers stopped him and asked him to open the backpack. At that point the tourist from Dubai, unremarkable until then, went at the soldiers with a machete.

They first tried to handle the situation without using their firearms and dodged the Islamist’s blows. One soldier stumbled, went down and had to keep the attacker at distance with his boots, at which point his comrade opened fire and hit the 29-year-old Egyptian in the abdomen. The first round had no stopping effect, so more shots followed, and only after 4–5 hits to the torso did the Islamist go down for good. While security forces sealed off the entire Louvre, the badly wounded attacker was taken to a hospital. As it happened, the emergency doctor who later monitored al-Hamamy’s condition was a close friend of the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo and had been among the first responders who fought for the victims’ lives at the scene of that attack.

In memory of all victims of terrorism.

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