France: Shooting near mosque leaves 8 wounded
July 3, 2017
Two hooded men opened fire outside a mosque in the southeastern city of Avignon on Sunday night, police said, amid a heightened sense of fear in France.
A car pulled up at about 10:30 p.m. local time and opened fire with a shotgun as people were leaving the building, French daily La Provence reported.
Eight people, including a 7-year-old girl, had non-life-threatening injuries in the incident at Arrahma mosque.
"From what we know this evening, the mosque was not targeted. The fact that it happened in the street of the religious establishment was unconnected with it," the prosecutor told French news agency AFP, ruling out terrorism.
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Criminal police were still hunting the shooters. French news outlets posted images from the scene on social media.
The regional daily said police had dismissed a terrorist motive, suspecting it was likely a settling of accounts or a dispute between young people.
The incident came after a man was arrested on Thursday after trying to drive a car into a crowd in front of a mosque in the Paris suburb of Creteil in an incident in which no one was injured.
France is on high security alert following a series of militant attacks in recent years.
aw/cmk (AFP, dpa, Reuters, AP)