#BREAKING: At least 3 people were injured after a stabbing attack in #Montauban southern #France, attacker shot by police pic.twitter.com/ueRRhFuUBk — Amichai Stein (@AmichaiStein1) February 19, 2017

A knife-wielding attacker was shot by police in south west France after wounding a woman in the shoulder.

The assailant, who has not been named but is believed to be 32 and from the French overseas territory of Reunion Island, struck in the town of Montauban, north of Toulouse.

The attack occurred in the same location where an al-Qaeda operative killed two Muslim French soldiers five years ago, although authorities are yet to confirm if today’s incident is terror related.

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The incident happened shortly after midday when the suspect was seen driving erratically in a VW Golf registered locally.


Police followed, and then witnessed the driver jumping out of the car and stabbing a woman in the shoulder.



He then ran towards a couple, and tried to wound them too, but was then shot by the police who described him as being ‘neutralised’.

‘The suspect was rushed to hospital, and will be interviewed at length,’ said a local police source.

‘It may be that he was drunk at the time of the attack. He is injured, but his wounds are not life threatening’.

The source said that the woman who was wounded in the shoulder was also in hospital, and in a stable condition.

It was on March 15th 2012 that Mohammed Merah, a 23-year-old fanatic, gunned down the uniformed soldiers in a Monauban shopping centre.

Mohamed Merah, the suspect in the killing of 3 paratroopers, 3 children and a rabbi in recent days in France (Picture: Reuters)

Merah also shot dead a French Muslim paratrooper in Toulouse. His suspected motive was revenge for the men having fought for western forces in Afghanistan.

On March 19th, Merah went on to murder four Jews, including three children, at the Ozar Hatorah day school in Toulouse, saying it was a revenge for Israelis ‘killing our brothers and sisters in Palestine’.

The murderer was then himself killed during a gunfight on March 22nd with special forces police at his flat in Toulouse.

France remains in a State of Emergency following a series of terrorist attacks carried out by Al-Qaeda and Islamic State cells.

Earlier this month an Egyptian national was gunned down in the Louvre in Paris after trying to attack soldiers with a knife.