A driver screaming "Allahu Akbar!" (Arabic for "God is great") appeared to deliberately mow down about a dozen pedestrians in the French city of Dijon before being arrested on Sunday, officials said.

The driver, who was in his forties, hit groups of pedestrians in five parts of the eastern city before being arrested, a spokesman for the Ministry of the Interior said on French television. Eleven people in all were injured, two of them seriously, officials said.

According to testimonies on the scene, the driver also invoked "the children of Palestine"' to explain his actions, the ministry's spokesman said. France's Interior Ministry Spokesman Pierre Henry Brandet said "the man acted alone," and that the suspect was known to police for crimes committed in the 1990s. A day earlier, French police in a Tours suburb shot and killed a man also shouting "Allahu Akbar" who had stabbed and wounded three officers in a police station.

Policemen collect evidence on Dec. 21, in Dijon on the site where a driver shouting "Allahu Akbar" ("God is great") plowed into a crowd injuring 11 people, two seriously, a source close to the investigation said. ARNAUD FINISTRE / AFP - Getty Images

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— Nancy Ing in Paris, with Hasansi Gittens and Reuters