Four days after the knife attack near the Eiffel Tower in Paris on Saturday, December 2, that killed one person and injured two others, the suspect, Armand Rajabpour-Miyandoab, a 26-year-old French-Iranian dual citizen, was charged on Wednesday for "murder and attempted murder in connection with a terrorist enterprise." He has been remanded in custody and placed in solitary confinement.

The three other people arrested as part of this investigation – his parents and a 27-year-old radicalized woman he had contacted on social media, whom he met the day before the attack – were released without prosecution. At this stage of the probe, investigators from the General Directorate for Internal Security (DGSI) and the Paris Antiterrorist Section, suspect it was an isolated act.

While in police custody, Rajabpour-Miyandoab claimed responsibility for his attack, as he had done shortly before the crime, by posting an Arabic-language video on his X account in which he pledged allegiance to the Islamic State (IS) group. In a controlled tone, he told investigators that he had carried out the act in reaction to the Israeli army's bombardment of Gaza after the Hamas attack on October 7, and following the orders of the IS, which had called at the end of October for attacks on "Jews."

Operational backing for IS

Le Monde has learned he explained that he had initially considered several different targets, including several Jewish ones, before the attack that ultimately claimed the life of a 23-year-old German-Filipino tourist. According to a source close to the investigation, he had chosen the Vél-d'Hiv' children's memorial garden, inaugurated in 2017 in memory of 4,115 Jewish children rounded up and deported to the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp in 1942.

The garden, a few hundred meters from the Eiffel Tower, adjoins the Bir-Hakeim bridge, near which the attack took place shortly after 9 pm. Was the park deserted because of the late hour, forcing the assailant to fall back on a passer-by? Rajabpour-Miyandoab offered no clear explanation on this. He was, however, very explicit about his modus operandi: "I knock out with a hammer, I kill with a knife."

According to his statements, the trigger for his act seems to have been twofold: a feeling of solidarity and anger at the fate of those in Gaza, which was then validated by an operational green light provided by IS. On October 19, the terrorist group had called "to attack the Jews and their interests in the world." However, the group was quick to add that the fight was not aimed at the creation of a Palestinian state, which it claims in forbidden in Islam, but a religious war against Jewish people.

You have 45% of this article left to read. The rest is for subscribers only.