French soldier stabbed in neck while on patrol

MAY 27, 2013 BY AGENCY REPORTER A French soldier who was stabbed Saturday on the western outskirts of Paris was targeted because of his military service, France’s defense minister said. “The aim was to kill the soldier because he was a soldier,” Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian told CNN affiliate BFMTV. The attacker wanted “to kill a soldier who is in charge of French security,” he said. The soldier was stabbed in the neck from behind with either a knife or a box cutter, a Hauts-de-Seine police spokesman said. The soldier, 23, was hospitalized with non-life-threatening wounds, the Ministry of Defense said in a statement. The attacker was wearing a robe and appeared to be North African, said Laurent Lefebvre, a spokesman for Syndicat Alliance Police Nationale, a French police union. Hauts-de-Seine police said they were screening surveillance video. The case has been passed on to anti-terrorism investigators in Paris.