Islamic State claims French attack that killed two women

Islamic State claimed responsibility for a Sunday attack in the French port city of Marseille in which a knife-wielding man stabbed two women to death at a train station. French Interior Minister Gerard Collomb said a video from the Saint-Charles station showed the man attacking the first woman and running away before coming back to attack the second woman. The man started to run toward soldiers responding to the incident when they shot him dead, Collomb said. Witnesses said the attacker shouted “Allahu akbar,” which means “God is great,” as he attacked the women. The Paris prosecutor’s office, which handles French terror cases, has opened a counterterrorism investigation into the attack. Police union official Yves Lefebvre said the suspect didn’t seem to have French residency papers. Police detained him earlier on Saturday for shoplifting at a department store in the Lyon region. “Nothing allowed us to suspect there was a threat of radicalization during the arrest,” Lefebvre said. Islamic State’s Aamaq news agency released a statement Sunday night claiming the attacker as one of its soldiers who responded to the terror group’s call for more attacks against countries fighting its militants in Iraq and Syria. French President Emmanuel Macron condemned the attack as “barbarous” and lauded the soldiers for responding with “extreme calmness and efficiency.”