Police officer shot dead by gunman in Paris

A gunman has killed a police officer and seriously wounded two others before being shot dead in an attack on the Champs Elysees shopping district in the French capital, according to Paris police and the interior ministry. The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group claimed responsibility for the attack on Thursday evening, which took place three days before France's first round of presidential election. Pierre-Henry Brandet, interior ministry spokesman, said the attack happened near the Franklin Roosevelt subway station, at the centre of the avenue popular with tourists. "An automatic weapon was used against police, a weapon of war," Brandet told reporters, adding that the "terrorist threat" in the country remained high. "A vehicle stopped near a [parked] traffic police vehicle. A man got out straight away and opened fire on the police, fatally injuring one police officer," Brandet said. "The man then tried to run away along the pa vement and aimed at the police. He injured two of them, apparently seriously, and one policeman shot back and killed the attacker." Police officials said the chief suspect was a 39-year-old from a suburb east of Paris. "The identity of the attacker is known and has been checked. I will not give it because investigations with raids are ongoing," Paris prosecutor Francois Molins told reporters. "The investigators want to be sure whether he had or did not have accomplices." Source: Al Jazeera Keep visiting Mr Olumide's Blog M.O.B