Timeline of terror attacks in France since Charlie Hebdo

PARIS — At least 84 people were killed when a truck ploughed into a crowd in the French Riviera resort town of Nice during Bastille Day celebrations this week, the latest in a series of attacks on the country, many of which have been claimed by the Islamic State group.

Here is a recap of major attacks and foiled attempts since the Charlie Hebdo shootings in January 2015.

2015


Jan 7-9, 2015: Two men armed with Kalashnikov rifles storm the Paris offices of satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo killing 12 people including eight cartoonists.

A policewoman is killed just outside Paris the following day, while a gunman takes hostages at a Jewish supermarket, four of whom are killed.

The Charlie Hebdo attackers and the hostage-taker are killed in separate shootouts with police, but not before claiming allegiance to Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State (IS) respectively.

Feb 3, 2015: A knife-wielding man attacks three soldiers guarding a Jewish community centre in Nice on the French Riviera.

The 30-year-old assailant, Moussa Coulibaly, is arrested. In custody, he expresses his hatred for France, the police, the military and Jews.

April 19, 2015: Sid Ahmed Ghlam, an Algerian IT student, is arrested in Paris on suspicion of killing a woman who was found shot dead in the passenger seat of her car, and of planning an attack on a church in the Paris suburb of Villejuif.

Prosecutors say they found documents about Al-Qaeda and IS at his home, and that he had been in touch with a suspected jihadist in Syria about an attack on a church.

June 26, 2015: Frenchman Yassin Salhi, 35, kills and beheads his boss Herve Cornara and displays the severed head, surrounded by two Islamic flags, on the fence of a gas plant. He tries to blow up the factory at Saint-Quentin-Fallavier in south-east France, but is arrested. He commits suicide in his jail cell in December.

July 13, 2015: Four men aged 16 to 23, including a former soldier, are arrested on charges of planning an attack on a military camp to behead an officer in the name of jihad. They proclaim allegiance to IS.

Aug 21, 2015: American, British and French passengers prevent a bloodbath on a high-speed Thalys train from Amsterdam to Paris, tackling a man who opened fire on travellers.

He was armed with a Kalashnikov assault rifle, an automatic pistol and a box-cutter. The gunman is identified as 25-year-old Moroccan national Ayoub El Khazzani, known to intelligence services for links to radical Islam.

Nov 13, 2015: Nine men — most of whom had fought alongside IS extremists in Syria — open fire on people enjoying a night out at bars and restaurants in Paris and at the Bataclan concert hall that lies just a short walk from where the Charlie Hebdo cartoonists were killed. Attackers also detonate suicide vests near the Stade de France stadium.

In all, 130 people lose their lives and 350 are wounded. The following day IS claims responsibility.

2016

Jan 1, 2016: A Frenchman of Tunisian origin tries to run down troops guarding a mosque in the south-eastern town of Valence. He is charged with attempted homicide after telling emergency responders he “wanted to be killed by soldiers and to kill soldiers... a way for him to appear like a martyr”.

Jan 7, 2016: A man wielding a meat cleaver and carrying an IS emblem is shot dead as he tries to attack a police station in Paris. Convicted of theft in 2013, the man identified himself at the time as Sallah Ali, born in the Moroccan city of Casablanca in 1995.

June 13, 2016: Larosssi Abballa, 25, kills police officer Jean-Baptiste Salvaing, 42, and his partner, Jessica Schneider, 36, at their home in Magnanville, west of Paris.

Salvaing is stabbed to death, while Schneider’s throat is slit in front of their young son. Abballa is killed by a police SWAT team, but has already claimed the murders on social media in the name of the Islamic State group.

July 14, 2016: A truck ploughs 2km through a crowd on Nice’s palm tree-lined Promenade des Anglais after a Bastille Day fireworks display, killing at least 84 people and leaving 200 injured. The driver is shot dead by security forces.

The Islamic State group claims responsibility for the attack two days later. AFP