STRASBOURG, France — A massive manhunt involving hundreds of police and soldiers was underway Wednesday for a suspected extremist who yelled “God is great!” in Arabic during a shooting spree around one of Europe’s most famous Christmas markets. The assault in the eastern French city of Strasbourg killed two, left one person brain dead and injured 12 others, authorities said.

Police union officials identified the suspected assailant as Frenchman Cherif Chekatt, a 29-year-old with a thick police record for crimes including armed robbery and monitored as a suspected religious radical by the French intelligence services. The two officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to publicly discuss details of the large and ongoing investigation into the attack that set France on edge anew.

The suspect’s parents and two brothers, also known for radicalism, have been detained, according to a judicial official.

Reflecting Strasbourg’s international nature, the dead included a Thai tourist, and an Italian was reportedly among the wounded. The U.S. government, among others, warned citizens in the area to be vigilant. The city is home to the European Parliament and considers itself a capital of Europe — and promotes itself as the “capital of Christmas.”

Some 720 members of the security forces were hunting for the suspected gunman Wednesday. Prosecutor Remy Heitz said the suspect was shot in the arm during an exchange of fire with French soldiers during his rampage in the city center on Tuesday. He then took a taxi to another part of the city, boasting of the attack to the driver. There, he exchanged more gunfire with police and disappeared.

Heitz said the man attacked his victims with a handgun and a knife. Previously, French authorities had said the assailant killed three people, but Heitz said two people were confirmed dead while the third was brain dead. A further 12 people were injured, six of them gravely.

Witnesses described shots and screams after the gunman opened fire around the Christmas market Tuesday evening. They also reported that the assailant yelled “God is great!” in Arabic during the attack, the prosecutor added. For several hours swaths of the city were under lockdown.

Senior Interior Ministry official Laurent Nunez said the suspect had been radicalized in prison and had been monitored by French intelligence services since his release in late 2015, because of his suspected religious extremism.

Nunez said on France-Inter radio that police sought to arrest the man on Tuesday morning, hours before the shooting, in relation to an attempted murder. He was not at home but five other people were detained, authorities said.

Heitz said police seized a grenade, a rifle and knives during the operation.

The government raised the security alert level and sent police reinforcements to Strasbourg, where hundreds of police and soldiers were involved in the search.

A terrorism investigation was opened, but the motive of the attack is unclear.

At Chekatt’s apartment, in an outer neighborhood of Strasbourg, the lock of the door was broken at his apartment. Police were guarding the building.

A neighbor, who asked not to be named because the gunman was still at large, said he was rarely home. She said she last saw him Monday from her window, which looks out on a common hallway, and he was with another man.

Young men from the apartment block said they knew him as someone who seemed destabilized by his time in prison. “You can just tell,” said one, lightly touching the side of his head. They, too, feared being publicly named because the gunman is still being hunted by police.

The suspected attacker’s more than two dozen convictions also included crimes in Germany and Switzerland, according to court documents seen by The Associated Press.

The German government says it has stepped up controls on the country’s border with France following the attack, but sees no change to the threat level in Germany.

Strasbourg’s Christmas market attracts visitors from around the world. A Thai national, 45-year-old Anupong Suebsamarn, was one of the two killed, according to a Thai Foreign Ministry spokeswoman.

The English-language website of the newspaper Khao Sod said Anupong was the owner of a noodle factory in Chachoengsao province, east of Bangkok, and also sold clothes in the Thai capital’s garment district. It quoted his uncle as saying he and his wife had originally planned to visit Paris, but the “yellow vest” protests there prompted them to change plans and go to Strasbourg instead.

Italian media say Antonio Megalizzi, 28, was among the wounded, and is in critical condition. Italian daily La Repubblica reports that he was in Strasbourg to follow the European Parliamentary session.

The attack is a new blow to France, which saw a wave of Islamic extremist killings in 2015 and 2016. It came amid a month of protests against President Emmanuel Macron that have blocked roads around the country, led to rioting in the capital and put heavy strain on police.

While authorities urged people in the area to stay inside after Tuesday’s attack, Strasbourg Mayor Roland Ries told BFM television Wednesday that “life must go on” so that the city doesn’t cede to a “terrorist who is trying to disrupt our way of life.”

Many of Europe’s deadliest terror attacks in recent years have taken place in France. In response to Tuesday’s shooting, the government decided to take the country’s attack risk up a level on the official threat index.

Leicester and Corbet reported from Paris. Angela Charlton in Paris, Geir Moulson in Berlin, Kaweewit Kaewjinda in Bangkok and Colleen Barry in Milan also contributed to this report.</s>Hundreds of security forces have combed eastern France for a 29-year-old man suspected of opening fire near Strasbourg’s famous Christmas market.

Tuesday night’s attack at the Christmas market in Strasbourg killed two people, left a third brain-dead and injured 12, and was a stark reminder to a nation wounded by previous assaults that terrorism remains a threat, even as anti-government protests roil the country.

National police distributed a photo of the wounded fugitive, identified as Cherif Chekatt, with the warning: “Individual dangerous, above all do not intervene.”

France raised its three-stage threat index to the highest level and bolstered troops around France.

Interior Minister Christophe Castaner told politicians that the French native, born in Strasbourg, had run-ins with police starting at age 10 and his first conviction at age 13.

Chekatt had been convicted 27 times, mostly in France but also in Switzerland and Germany, for crimes including armed robbery. He had been flagged for extremism and was on a watch list, but the interior minister said “the signs were weak”.

“It’s a large zone and the search is difficult,” senior Interior Ministry official Laurent Nunez said on France-Inter radio.

Strasbourg is on the border with Germany, where the suspect was convicted in 2016 of breaking into a dental practice and a pharmacy in two towns.

Prosecutor Remy Heitz said the man attacked with a handgun and a knife about 8pm local time on Tuesday, and was shot in the arm during an exchange of fire with soldiers during his rampage.

He then took a taxi to another part of the city, boasting of the attack to the driver, and later exchanged more gunfire with police and disappeared, Mr Heitz said.

Witnesses described shots and screams after the gunman opened fire and yelled “God is great!” in Arabic, the prosecutor added. Swaths of the city were under lockdown for hours.

The dead included a Thai tourist, 45-year-old Anupong Suebsamarn, according to Thai Foreign Ministry and the website of the Khao Sod newspaper.

It quoted his uncle as saying he and his wife had originally planned to visit Paris, but the protests there prompted them to change plans and go to Strasbourg instead.

One Italian was reported to be among the wounded.

Italian media said Antonio Megalizzi, 28, was in critical condition. Italian daily La Repubblica reported he was in Strasbourg to follow the session of the European Parliament.

After initially reporting that three people had died, authorities revised that and said one was brain-dead, while 12 people were wounded, six of them gravely.

About 720 police, soldiers and Swat team officers in Strasbourg were being reinforced with 500 more soldiers and another 1,300 in the coming days to guard public places, especially other Christmas markets, Prime Minister Edouard Philippe said after a crisis meeting.

The attack in the heart of old Strasbourg, near its famous cathedral and within the Christmas market that draws many tourists, unsettled the border city that also is home to the European Parliament.

The German government said it had stepped up controls on the border with France but did not change its threat level.

“All terrorist attacks touch all of France, and it’s plain to see each of the attacks have hit a highly symbolic point or moment,” Mr Philippe told parliament.

He listed violence since 2015 that killed more than 200: at the Charlie Hebdo satiric newspaper, a Kosher store, restaurants, bars and a concert hall in Paris; along the famed seaside promenade in Nice; and even inside a church in a quiet suburb of the northern city of Rouen, among others.

Strasbourg’s Christmas market “is a family and brotherly celebration that speaks about hope and what unites us. It’s this celebration that was hit yesterday by a terrorist act,” he said.

The city was in mourning, with candles lit at the site of the attack, and the Christmas market was closed at least through Thursday, according to regional prefect Jean-Luc Marx.

The attack came as President Emmanuel Macron sought to take back control of the nation after a month of anti-government protests that have spread violence across the country.

It came only 24 hours after he broke a long public silence and appealed for calm amid the mushrooming “yellow vest” protest movement that seeks a better standard of living for ordinary citizens.

He offered a package of measures, but it was not clear if that would halt the weekend protests.

“The terrorist threat is still at the core of our nation’s life,” government spokesman Benjamin Griveaux quoted Mr Macron as saying at the weekly Cabinet meeting.

Interior Ministry official Mr Nunez said Chekatt had been radicalised in prison and had been monitored by French intelligence services since his release in late 2015, because of his suspected religious extremism.

Mr Nunez told France-Inter that police went to his apartment in an outer neighbourhood of Strasbourg on Tuesday morning. Authorities said he was not there, although five other people were detained.

Police seized a grenade, a rifle and knives in the operation, Mr Heitz said.</s>BERLIN (AFP) - The suspect in the deadly shooting attack at a Christmas market in eastern France was jailed for burglary in Germany but was not deemed a potentially dangerous Islamist, German authorities said on Wednesday (Dec 12).

"For us, he was a blank slate," said a spokeswoman of the Federal Criminal Police Office, which handles cases related to terrorism.

An interior ministry spokeswoman also said that there has been no indications suggesting an Islamist link to the suspect.

The 29-year-old suspect was sentenced to two years and three months for burglaries in the southwestern city of Mainz and in Baden-Wuerttemberg state farther south, and jailed in 2016.

"He served a year in Germany before being expelled to France," a spokesman from Baden-Wuerttemberg's interior ministry told AFP.

According to the Tagesspiegel newspaper, the man broke into a dentist practice in Mainz, Rhineland Palatinate state, in 2012, making away with cash, stamps and gold used for teeth fillings.

Four years later, he hit a pharmacy in the Lake Constance town of Engen, Baden-Wuerttemberg, pocketing cash.

German authorities were on the lookout for the fugitive "along the Rhine" river region, the ministry spokesman said.

"But at the moment we do not believe that he has crossed into the country," he added.

The gunman opened fire Tuesday evening at the famed Strasbourg Christmas market, which draws thousands of visitors every year.

The shooting left two people dead and 13 wounded.

French authorities said the attacker had been on their list of extremists and "is actively being hunted by security forces".

Meanwhile, German police said they have released three people earlier detained following tipoffs from the public following the Strasbourg attack.

The three were in a taxi with French licence plates which was halted on the A1 motorway close to the city Bremen, a police spokesman in Delmenhorst told national news agency DPA.

Police said they have been freed after investigations ruled out any connection to the attack in Strasbourg.

Police also denied an earlier report that one of the three was masked.</s>Two people have been murdered and another 12 injured after a terrorist opened fire at a famous Christmas market in Strasbourg.

The gunman had been flagged as a possible extremist previously and a massive manhunt is now underway as France raised its terror alert.

It was unclear if the market – a popular gathering place and the nucleus of an al-Qaida-linked plot in 2000 – was the intended target. The assailant got inside a security zone around the venue and opened fire from there, Mayor Roland Ries said on BFM television.

Initial reports said that four people had been killed and that figure was dropped to three and then again to two. It is not known why there was confusion among the authorities over the number of dead.

The market, France’s largest, is set up around the city’s cathedral during the Christmas season.

Authorities did not give a motive for the shooting, though prosecutors said they had opened a terrorism investigation. Strasbourg, located in eastern France, is home to the European Parliament, one of several places put on an emergency lockdown after the shooting.

The prefect of the Strasbourg region said the man identified as the alleged gunman was on a watch list of potentially radicalised people. Authorities did not name him publicly or provide details such as his age and nationality.

Interior Minister Christophe Castaner, who travelled to Strasbourg, said the suspect had convictions in France and Germany for crimes unrelated to terrorism and served time in prison. He did not elaborate.

Hours before the shooting, French gendarmes went to the suspect’s home to arrest him, but he wasn’t there, Stephane Morisse of police union FGP said. They found explosive materials during a search, he said.

Many of Europe’s deadliest terror attacks in recent years took place in France. In response to Tuesday’s shooting, the government decided to take the country’s attack risk up a level on the official threat index and to send security reinforcements to Strasbourg, Castaner said early Wednesday.

Strasbourg, a city about 310 miles east of Paris on France’s border with Germany, promotes itself as the ‘Capital of Christmas’ and the market set up around the local cathedral is a holiday tradition. Two years ago, a Tunisian man drove a hijacked truck into a busy Berlin Christmas market, killing 12 people in the German capital.

Some 350 officers and two helicopters were searching for the assailant, who had been radicalised for ‘several years’ and confronted law enforcement officers twice, exchanging fire, while he ‘sowed terror,’ Castaner said.

More than seven hours after the bloodshed, the regional prefect said 11 other people were injured, five of them seriously, downgrading Castaner’s earlier count of 12 injured.

The shooter was also shot and wounded by soldiers guarding the Christmas market, according to the FGP union’s Morisse.

French military spokesman Col. Patrik Steiger said the shooter didn’t seem to be aiming at soldiers patrolling in and around the market, but appeared to target civilians instead.

Witnesses described hearing gunshots, screams and shouts of police officers ordering people to stay indoors before the area fell silent and the officers fanned out.

‘I heard two or three shots at around 7.55 p.m., then I heard screams. I got close to the window. I saw people running. After that I closed the shutters. Then I heard more shots, closer this time,’ Yoann Bazard, 27, who lives in central Strasbourg.

‘I thought maybe it’s firecrackers,’ he said, speaking by phone. ‘And then, as it got close, it was really shocking. There were a lot of screams. … There were police or soldiers shouting `Get inside!’ and `Put your hands on your head.”

Freelance journalist Camille Belsoeur was at a friend’s apartment when they heard the gunfire, which she at first mistook for firecrackers.

‘We opened the window. I saw a soldier firing shots, about 12 to 15 shots,’ Belsoeur said.

Other soldiers yelled for people to stay indoors and shouted `Go home! Go home!” to those outside, he said.

Another witness, Peter Fritz, told the BBC one of the people killed was a Thai tourist who was shot in the head and didn’t respond to lengthy attempts to revive him.

‘We tried our best to resuscitate him. We applied CPR. We dragged him into a restaurant close by,’ Fritz said.

He said it took more than 45 minutes for an ambulance to arrive, during which time an emergency doctor advised by telephone ‘that any further efforts would be futile.’

The victim ‘is still here in this restaurant but we have abandoned all hope for him,’ Fritz said.

France has been hit in recent years with high-profile extremist attacks, including the coordinated attacks at multiple Paris locations that killed 130 people and wounded hundreds in November 2015. A 2016 truck attack in Nice killed dozens.

Tuesday’s attack followed four weeks of protests against President Emmanuel Macron that have stretched the police forces deployed to clear blocked roads and to quell rioting, looting and other protest-related mayhem.

Macron adjourned a meeting at the presidential palace Tuesday night to monitor the emergency, his office said. The president tweeted ‘Solidarity of the whole nation for Strasbourg, our victims, their families’ and at midnight presided over a meeting at the Interior Ministry’s crisis centre.

The office of the Paris prosecutor, who is in charge of France’s terror investigations, said the Strasbourg probe was being conducted on suspicion of murder and attempted murder in relation with a terrorist enterprise. The latter charge suggests officials do not exclude links between the shooter and an extremist cell.

Authorities urged the public to remain indoors at the height of the drama. People dining out at restaurants were held in place for hours. So were thousands of basketball fans who attended a game at a sports stadium and European Union lawmakers in the locked down Parliament.

They eventually were allowed to leave the buildings. People with nowhere to go were offered shelter in a gymnasium, the prefect tweeted.

The Christmas market is set to stay closed Wednesday, when flags in Strasbourg will be flown at half-staff in mourning for the people killed, Mayor Ries said.

The attack revived memories of a new millennium terror plot targeting Strasbourg’s Christmas market. Ten suspected Islamic militants were convicted and sentenced to prison in December 2004 for their role in a plot to blow up the market on the New Year’s Eve ushering in 2000..

The Algerian and French-Algerian suspects – including an alleged associate of al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden – went on trial in October on charges they were involved in the foiled plot for the attack.

They were sentenced to prison terms ranging from one to nine years.</s>A shooting at France’s largest Christmas market left three dead and 12 wounded Tuesday in what is now being investigated as a terror attack.

The gunman, who has not been apprehended, opened fire around 7 p.m. in Place Kleber square in Strasbourg, French news network BFMTV reported.

Video posted by the UK Mirror shows screaming shoppers fleeing as shots ring out in the distance.

Officials have not revealed the shooter’s name, but have said he has a criminal record and is on France’s “S” watchlist of suspected extremists.

He was due to be arrested earlier in the day for a separate attempted murder, sources told the AP.

BFM reported the gunman is 29 and a native of Strasbourg.

Meanwhile, France’s counter-terror prosecutor was en route to Strasbourg and is exploring charges for murder and attempted murder in relation with a terrorist enterprise.

Christmas markets are a popular target for Islamist terror attacks, such as the 2016, ISIS-inspired truck crash in a Berlin holiday market that left 12 dead and 50 injured.

Want news about Europe delivered to your inbox? Subscribe to MarketWatch's free Europe Daily newsletter. Sign up here.</s>Hundreds of officers are searching for a 29-year-old man suspected of shooting three people dead at a Christmas market in Strasbourg.

Several others were wounded after a gunman opened fire near Place Kleber, one of the main squares in the city in eastern France.

Here’s what we know about the suspect:

– The suspect was subject of a ‘fiche S’, literally an S card, which is used by police to flag someone who is considered a threat to national security. Although not grounds for arrest, a fiche S (which stands for state security) allows surveillance. Others who have been flagged under the system include Amedy Coulibaly who killed four hostages at a siege in a Kosher supermarket in 2015, days after the Charlie Hebdo shooting.

– Interior minister Christophe Castaner said the suspect was known to police services and had served time in prison in France and Germany for common law offences.

– BFMTV said the suspect was known to be part of radicalised networks in Strasbourg and was a “repeat offender” and a “delinquent”.

– His home was subject of a search on Tuesday morning as part of investigations into a robbery. He was not in but grenades were found.</s>A man who had been flagged as a possible extremist sprayed gunfire near the famous Christmas market in the French city of Strasbourg on Tuesday, killing three people, wounding up to a dozen and sparking a massive manhunt when he got away. France immediately raised its terror alert level.

It was unclear if the market — a popular gathering place and the nucleus of an al-Qaida-linked plot in 2000 — was the intended target. The assailant got inside a security zone around the venue and opened fire from there, Mayor Roland Ries said on BFM television.

The market, France's largest, is set up around the city's cathedral during the Christmas season.

Authorities did not give a motive for the shooting, though prosecutors said they had opened a terrorism investigation. Strasbourg, located in eastern France, is home to the European Parliament, one of several places put on an emergency lockdown after the shooting.

The prefect of the Strasbourg region said the man identified as the alleged gunman was on a watch list of potentially radicalized people. Authorities did not name him publicly or provide details such as his age and nationality.

Interior Minister Christophe Castaner, who traveled to Strasbourg, said the suspect had convictions in France and Germany for crimes unrelated to terrorism and served time in prison. He did not elaborate.

Hours before the shooting, French gendarmes went to the suspect's home to arrest him, but he wasn't there, Stephane Morisse of police union FGP said. They found explosive materials during a search, he said.

Many of Europe's deadliest terror attacks in recent years took place in France. In response to Tuesday's shooting, the government decided to take the country's attack risk up a level on the official threat index and to send security reinforcements to Strasbourg, Castaner said early Wednesday.

Strasbourg, a city about 500 kilometers (310 miles) east of Paris on France's border with Germany, promotes itself as the "Capital of Christmas" and the market set up around the local cathedral is a holiday tradition. Two years ago, a Tunisian man drove a hijacked truck into a busy Berlin Christmas market, killing 12 people in the German capital.

Some 350 officers and two helicopters were searching for the assailant, who had been radicalized for "several years" and confronted law enforcement officers twice, exchanging fire, while he "sowed terror," Castaner said.

The death toll stood at three early Wednesday, the minister said. Two police union officials said earlier there were four victims. Officials did not explain the conflicting numbers.

More than seven hours after the bloodshed, the regional prefect said 11 other people were injured, five of them seriously, downgrading Castaner's earlier count of 12 injured.

The shooter was also shot and wounded by soldiers guarding the Christmas market, according to the FGP union's Morisse.

French military spokesman Col. Patrik Steiger said the shooter didn't seem to be aiming at soldiers patrolling in and around the market, but appeared to target civilians instead.

Witnesses described hearing gunshots, screams and shouts of police officers ordering people to stay indoors before the area fell silent and the officers fanned out.

"I heard two or three shots at around 7:55 p.m., then I heard screams. I got close to the window. I saw people running. After that I closed the shutters. Then I heard more shots, closer this time," Yoann Bazard, 27, who lives in central Strasbourg.

"I thought maybe it's firecrackers," he said, speaking by phone. "And then, as it got close, it was really shocking. There were a lot of screams. ... There were police or soldiers shouting 'Get inside!' and 'Put your hands on your head.'"

Freelance journalist Camille Belsoeur was at a friend's apartment when they heard the gunfire, which she at first mistook for firecrackers.

"We opened the window. I saw a soldier firing shots, about 12 to 15 shots," Belsoeur said,

Other soldiers yelled for people to stay indoors and shouted 'Go home! Go home!'" to those outside, he said.

Another witness, Peter Fritz, told the BBC one of the four people killed was a Thai tourist who was shot in the head and didn't respond to lengthy attempts to revive him.

"We tried our best to resuscitate him. We applied CPR. We dragged him into a restaurant close by," Fritz said.

He said it took more than 45 minutes for an ambulance to arrive, during which time an emergency doctor advised by telephone "that any further efforts would be futile."

The victim "is still here in this restaurant but we have abandoned all hope for him," Fritz said.

France has been hit in recent years with high-profile extremist attacks, including the coordinated attacks at multiple Paris locations that killed 130 people and wounded hundreds in November 2015. A 2016 truck attack in Nice killed dozens.

Tuesday's attack followed four weeks of protests against President Emmanuel Macron that have stretched the police forces deployed to clear blocked roads and to quell rioting, looting and other protest-related mayhem.

Macron adjourned a meeting at the presidential palace Tuesday night to monitor the emergency, his office said. The president tweeted "Solidarity of the whole nation for Strasbourg, our victims, their families" and at midnight presided over a meeting at the Interior Ministry's crisis center.

The office of the Paris prosecutor, who is in charge of France's terror investigations, said the Strasbourg probe was being conducted on suspicion of murder and attempted murder in relation with a terrorist enterprise. The latter charge suggests officials do not exclude links between the shooter and an extremist cell.

Authorities urged the public to remain indoors at the height of the drama. People dining out at restaurants were held in place for hours. So were thousands of basketball fans who attended a game at a sports stadium and European Union lawmakers in the locked down Parliament.

They eventually were allowed to leave the buildings. People with nowhere to go were offered shelter in a gymnasium, the prefect tweeted.

The Christmas market is set to stay closed Wednesday, when flags in Strasbourg will be flown at half-staff in mourning for the people killed, Mayor Ries said.

The attack revived memories of a new millennium terror plot targeting Strasbourg's Christmas market. Ten suspected Islamic militants were convicted and sentenced to prison in December 2004 for their role in a plot to blow up the market on the New Year's Eve ushering in 2000..

The Algerian and French-Algerian suspects — including an alleged associate of al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden — went on trial in October on charges they were involved in the foiled plot for the attack.

They were sentenced to prison terms ranging from one to nine years.</s>The Strasbourg gunman yelled “Allahu Akbar” (“God is greatest” in Arabic) as he opened fire on people enjoying an evening out at a Christmas market, the Paris public prosecutor told reporters.

Rémy Heitz said two people had been killed and one left brain-dead after the attack in the eastern French city on Tuesday.

Twelve were wounded, six seriously.

The man, named by local media as Chérif Chekatt, was known to authorities as having been radicalised in prison.

The 29-year-old was armed with a gun and a knife and escaped the area in a taxi, Mr Heitz said.

The attacker boasted to the driver – who has spoken to police – that he had killed 10 people, and said he had been injured in a firefight with soldiers.

Four people connected to the suspect had been detained overnight in Strasbourg, Mr Heitz added. Sources close to the investigation quoted by Reuters news agency said they were the suspect’s mother, father and two brothers.
• Strasbourg shooting: What we know so far
• Face to face with the gunman

Hundreds of officers are currently involved in the search for the gunman. France’s Deputy Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez earlier acknowledged he may no longer be in France.

Interior Minister Christophe Castaner said the country had moved to a high level of alert, expanding police powers and increasing vigilance.

He added that border controls had been strengthened and security at all Christmas markets would be stepped up.

The mayor of Strasbourg, Roland Ries, has said the Christmas market will be closed on Wednesday and flags lowered to half-mast at the local town hall.

The attack unfolded at around 20:00 local time (19:00 GMT) on Tuesday close to Strasbourg’s famed Christmas market near one of the central squares, Place Kléber, which attracts thousands of visitors at this time of year.

A woman called Audrey told France’s BFM TV how she came face to face with the killer after watching him shoot a man in the head.

The gunman then opened fire for a second time, and another man fell to ground.

Her friends began to run to safety, but Audrey was frozen to the spot. The gunman turned, and faced her – but then he too ran.

“Why didn’t he shoot at me?” she told the TV channel. “I don’t know. I think I was extremely lucky. As everyone was screaming he fled.”

According to Mr Heitz, as he fled he came into contact with four soldiers. He began firing at them and they fired back, apparently injuring him.

How did he escape?

He managed to reach a taxi which drove him away from the scene and dropped him in the vicinity of the police station in Neudorf, the area where he lives which sits on the border between Germany and France.

When he got out the vehicle, he fired at police officers.

What do we know about the gunman?

According to police – who refer to him as Chérif C – the gunman was born in Strasbourg and was already known to the security services as a possible terrorist threat.

He was the subject of a “fiche S”, a watchlist of people who represent a potential threat to national security.

He also had 27 convictions spanning across France, Germany and Switzerland, and has spent considerable time in prison as a result.

Police were seeking him on Tuesday morning in connection with another case, but did not find him at home.

However Mr Nuñez said his crimes had never been terrorism-related. But, he added, it was during one period in prison that he was indentified as having become radicalised.

“The fact he was a ‘fiche S’ did not pre-judge his level of dangerousness,” Mr Nuñez told France Inter.

A search of his home revealed a grenade, a rifle, four knives, two of which were hunting knives, and ammunition.

What about the victims?

Thai media have named Anupong Suebsamarn, 45, as one of the dead. He is believed to have been on holiday with his wife.

Not much else is known yet, apart from the fact no children were hurt and one soldier was slightly injured by a ricocheting bullet.

Strasbourg has been the target of jihadist plots in the past.

Not only does it have one of France’s oldest Christmas markets, but it is the official seat of the European Parliament. That parliament was in session at the time of Tuesday evening’s attack.

In 2000, the Christmas market was at the centre of a failed al-Qaeda plot. Ten Islamist militants were jailed four years later for their part in the planned New Year’s Eve attack.

Security has been tight there ever since the 2015 Paris attacks.

However, MEPs were determined to carry on the morning after the attack, with German MEP Jo Leinen posting a picture of singing and Christmas lights in the European Parliament. BBC</s>STRASBOURG, France — A man who had been flagged as a possible extremist sprayed gunfire near the city of Strasbourg’s famous Christmas market Tuesday, killing three people, wounding 12 and sparking a massive manhunt. France immediately raised its terror alert level.

It was unclear if the market – a popular gathering place that was the nucleus of an al-Qaida-linked plot in 2000 – was the intended target. The assailant got inside a security zone around the venue and opened fire from there, Mayor Roland Ries said on BFM television.

Authorities did not give a motive for the shooting, though prosecutors said they had opened a terrorism investigation. Strasbourg is home to the European Parliament, one of several places that was locked down after the shooting.

Authorities said they had identified a suspect, and he had a criminal record. The prefect of the Strasbourg region said the man also was on a watch list of people who had potentially radicalized. No other details about him were disclosed.

Hours before the shooting, French gendarmes went to the suspect’s home to arrest him, but he wasn’t there, Stephane Morisse of police union FGP said. They found explosive materials during a search, he said.

France, where most of Europe’s worst terror attacks of recent years took place, was raising its terror alert level and sending security reinforcements to Strasbourg, Interior Minister Christophe Castaner said early Wednesday.

The attack in Strasbourg came two years after a Tunisian man drove a hijacked truck into a busy Berlin Christmas market, killing 12 people. Strasbourg, which promotes itself as the “Capital of Christmas,” is located on France’s border with Germany, about 500 kilometers (310 miles) east of Paris. The market is set up around the city’s cathedral during the Christmas season.

Some 350 security forces and two helicopters were searching for the alleged assailant, who had been radicalized for “several years” and confronted law enforcement officers twice while he “sowed terror” in Strasbourg, Castaner said.

The death toll stood at three early Wednesday, he said. Two police union officials said earlier there were four victims. Officials did not explain the conflicting numbers.

A dozen more people were wounded, half of them in “absolute emergency” critical condition, Castaner said. The shooter was also shot and wounded by soldiers guarding the Christmas market, according to Stephane Morisse of police union FGP.

French military spokesman Col. Patrik Steiger said the shooter didn’t seem to be aiming for the soldiers patrolling in and around the market, but appeared to target civilians instead.

Witnesses described hearing gunshots, screams and shouts of police officers ordering people to stay indoors before the area fell silent and the officers fanned out.

“I heard two or three shots at around 7:55 p.m. (1855 GMT), then I heard screams. I got close to the window. I saw people running. After that I closed the shutters. Then I heard more shots, closer this time,” Yoann Bazard, 27, who lives in central Strasbourg.

“I thought maybe it’s firecrackers,” he said, speaking by phone. “And then, as it got close, it was really shocking. There were a lot of screams. … There were police or soldiers shouting ‘Get inside!’ and ‘Put your hands on your head.'”

Freelance journalist Camille Belsoeur was at a friend’s apartment when they heard the gunfire, which she at first mistook for firecrackers.

“We opened the window. I saw a soldier firing shots, about 12 to 15 shots,” Belsoeur said,

Other soldiers yelled for people to stay indoors and shouted ‘Go home! Go home!'” to those outside, he said.

Another witness, Peter Fritz, told the BBC one of the four people killed was a Thai tourist who was shot in the head and didn’t respond to lengthy attempts to revive him.

“We tried our best to resuscitate him. We applied CPR. We dragged him into a restaurant close by,” Fritz said.

He said it took more than 45 minutes for an ambulance to arrive, during which time an emergency doctor advised by telephone “that any further efforts would be futile.”

The victim “is still here in this restaurant but we have abandoned all hope for him,” Fritz said.

France previously endured several high-profile extremist attacks, including the coordinated attacks at multiple Paris locations that killed 130 people and wounded hundreds in November 2015. A 2016 truck attack in Nice killed dozens.

President Emmanuel Macron adjourned a meeting at the presidential palace Tuesday night to monitor the emergency, his office said, indicating the gravity of the attack.

Castaner and the Paris prosecutor, who is in charge of anti-terror probes in France, headed to Strasbourg. The prosecutor’s office said the investigation was being conducted on suspicion of murder and attempted murder in relation with a terrorist enterprise charges, suggesting officials think the alleged shooter may have links to extremists.

In multiple neighborhoods of Strasbourg, the French Interior Ministry urged the public to remain indoors. Local authorities tweeted for the public to “avoid the area of the police station,” which is close to the city’s Christmas market.

European Parliament spokesman Jaume Duch said that “the European Parliament has been closed and no one can leave until further notice.” It wasn’t immediately clear how many people were inside.

The attack revived memories of a new millennium terror plot targeting Strasbourg’s Christmas market. Ten suspected Islamic militants were convicted and sentenced to prison in December 2004 for their role in a plot to blow up the market on the New Year’s Eve ushering in 2000..

The Algerian and French-Algerian suspects – including an alleged associate of al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden – went on trial in October on charges they were involved in the foiled plot for the attack.

They were sentenced to prison terms ranging from one to nine years.</s>This article is more than 8 months old

This article is more than 8 months old

France has upgraded its security threat level as hundreds of police hunted a gunman who shot three people dead and injured 12 others in a terror attack on Strasbourg’s celebrated Christmas market on Tuesday evening.

Six hours after the gunman disappeared after firing at passers-by in the busy city centre, the interior minister, Christophe Castaner, said the government had raised the risk level to the highest category.

The move would strengthen border controls and bolster protection of Christmas markets and other events.

In a statement, Castaner said the gunman had opened fire in three different places in the city before engaging in firefights with patrolling soldiers.

“He fought twice with our security forces,” Castaner said.

French media reported the man, who was injured in one of the exchanges, then jumped in a taxi and disappeared.

Police immediately cut off major roads in and out of the city and launched a massive operation involving 350 police gendarmes and soldiers, as well as helicopters, to find him. French security services said they had identified the gunman as a 29-year-old born in Strasbourg, known to police and also on the “Fiche S” list of potential security threats.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Picture taken with a mobile phone shows rescuers treating an injured person on the streets of Strasbourg. Photograph: Francois D’astier/AFP/Getty Images

French media reported that gendarmes had attempted to arrest the man for a separate crime at his home in the Neudorf district of south-east Strasbourg earlier on Tuesday. The suspect was not home, but officers reportedly found grenades in his apartment.

Shortly before 8pm local time, the man, armed with an automatic rifle, walked over one of the city’s many bridges around the Grand Île toward the Christmas market, which attracts millions of visitors every year. Witnesses said the man fired a first volley of rounds and then walked down the street before opening fire again.

Local resident Yoann Bazard said he heard “two or three shots” and screams; and when he went to his window he saw people running. “After that I closed the shutters. Then I heard more shots, closer this time. There were two or three episodes like that ... As it got close, it was really shocking. There were a lot of screams.”

Freelance journalist Camille Belsoeur said he was at a friend’s apartment in the city centre and at first mistook the gunfire for firecrackers. “We opened the window. I saw a soldier firing shots, about 12 to 15 shots,” he said.

He said other soldiers yelled for people to stay indoors and shouted “Go home! Go home!” to those outside.

One of the dead was said to be a Thai tourist who was shot in the head outside a restaurant. Staff and diners tried to save him but were unsuccessful. Six of the injured were reported to be in a critical condition.

The anti-terrorist section of the Paris prosecutor’s office declared the incident to be an act of terrorism and announced an inquiry had been opened into “murder and attempted murder in relation to a criminal enterprise”.

The French president, Emmanuel Macron, immediately held a crisis meeting at the interior ministry in Paris.

The gunman reportedly shot at soldiers patrolling as part of the nationwide Operation Sentinelle, the French military operation introduced in the aftermath of terrorist attacks in and around Paris in January 2015, and was injured when they fired back.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Rescuers at the scene of gun attack near Strasbourg Christmas Market. Photograph: Murielle Kasprzak/AFP/Getty Images

Police asked residents in the centre of Strasbourg to stay at home bars and restaurants were ordered to close and not let customers leave. Hours after the shootings, thousands of people remained unable to leave city centre restaurants, bars, libraries, and other public buildings following police orders for everyone to stay off the streets. About 5,000 people were stuck inside the local sports stadium. The BBC reported the order was lifted in the early hours of Wednesday.

The European parliament, which is sitting in Strasbourg, was put on lockdown, and the parliament’s safety awareness division sent a message to MEPs advising those dining in the city centre to “please stay inside and don’t go out”.

“[A] decision has been taken, as a precautionary measure, to close the European parliament building in Strasbourg. We ask you to stay calm and safe within [European parliament] premises,” it read.

Later, Antonio Tajani, the president of the parliament, said it would not be ‘“intimidated” by terrorism.

Antonio Tajani (@EP_President) I express all my sorrow for the victims of the Strasbourg attacks. This Parliament will not be intimidated by terrorist or criminal attacks. Let us move on. We will continue to work and react strengthened by freedom and democracy against terrorist violence.

Several MEPs in city centre restaurants reported hearing gunfire. The Yorkshire and Humber MEP Richard Corbett tweeted that he was dining in the city “where shots (were) fired”. The restaurant was “not letting anyone in or out”, he added.

Theresa May said she was “shocked and saddened” by the “terrible” attack in Strasbourg. “My thoughts are with all of those affected and with the French people,” the British prime minister tweeted.

The local prefecture tweeted that people should avoid the area near the city’s police headquarters and that all access to the A35 motorway bisecting the city was blocked.

Police in Germany said they were strengthening controls at the Franco-German border near Strasbourg. The police force of Baden-Württemberg, a state in south-west Germany bordering Strasbourg, tweeted they were taking the extra measures at the border because of the shooting. The transnational tramway between France and Germany was suspended.

In the early hours of Wednesday, local prefect Roland Ries announced the Christmas market would be closed on Wednesday and all local cultural events cancelled.

France remains on high alert after suffering a wave of attacks commissioned or inspired by Islamic State militants in 2015 and 2016, which killed more than 200 people.

Strasbourg’s Christmas market, which started in 1570, is one of France’s most popular seasonal events. The “Grande Ile” where the market is held is surrounded by water, on one side the main channel of the River Ill and the other by the Canal du Faux-Rempart, is accessible only by bridges.

Since the Paris terrorist attacks in 2015, the event has been held under high security. Access to the area is controlled and visitors bags are searched. Vehicles are banned from the area.

In 2016, a truck was deliberately driven into the Christmas market in Berlin, killing 12 people and injuring 56 others. The perpetrator, Anis Amri, a Tunisian who had failed to gain asylum in Germany, was killed four days later in a shootout with police near Milan in Italy.

The attack comes during a period of intense tension across France after four weeks of civil unrest by anti-government protesters from the gilets jaunes movement.
A gunman kills two people and injures 14 others in a mass shooting in Strasbourg, France, during the annual Christmas market. The shooter flees the scene but is identified by police as a known extremist. The incident is being treated as an act of terrorism.