Story highlights French interior minister says the suspect was on the radar of intelligence services

The man, identified as Moussa Coulibaly, was known to have become radicalized

Suspect flew to Turkey last week but was turned back, a Turkish official said

Paris (CNN) A man arrested after a knife attack on two soldiers on the streets of Nice in southern France was already known to intelligence services as having been radicalized, French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said Wednesday.

The suspect, named by the Nice mayor's office as Moussa Coulibaly, 30, attacked a soldier and a comrade who came to his aid on Tuesday as they patrolled near a Jewish community center. They were slightly injured.

Intelligence services had detected the suspect's radicalization in the Yvelines area, west of Paris, Cazeneuve said. They informed the General Directorate of Internal Security, or DGSI.

The notification meant that when the suspect got on a plane to Turkey last month, an alert was raised, and Turkish authorities expelled him, Cazeneuve said.

The DGSI questioned him but was not at that time able to establish any criminal acts in the works or a legal case against him, the minister said.

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