Pictured: ‘Islamist terrorist’ who was shot dead by armed police after ‘trying to attack officers’ at Arc de Triomphe in Paris

An Islamist terrorist who was shot dead near the Arc de Triomphe in Paris after trying to attack a police officer with a knife has been pictured for the first time.

Brahim Bahrir, 48, tried to launch an assault with a blade on an officer near the famed Parisienne monument this evening, just two months after being freed from jail.

‘He was meant to be under surveillance, but this did not stop him from striking,’ an investigating source said.

‘It was shortly after 6pm when the suspect launched himself at those preparing to perform the daily ceremony rekindling the flame on the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, underneath the Arc de Triomphe.’

The incident happened during a Rekindling of the Flame at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, a daily event held at 6pm to honour France’s fallen soldiers, Le Figaro reported.

A second officer, who was also at the scene, opened fire and shot four times, with three striking Bahrir in the leg and the torso after he launched at a gendarme, who escaped without injury. 

Video footage emerged online showing him being circled by officers before being subdued. He later appeared to be leaning against a police van. 

He was rushed to Georges Pompidou European Hospital where he ‘died of his wounds within a few hours’, the source said, before adding: ‘Nobody else was hurt.’ 

It comes after it emerged Brahim had been freed from prison just weeks ago and was supposed to be monitored after attacking three officers in Brussels, Belgium.

Following the incident on June 8, 2012, he later told prosecutors he wanted to ‘punish them’ for not allowing Muslim women to wear burqas.

Brahim confessed to the attack, where he stabbed them all, including a woman, in an underground train station in Molenbeek, a Brussels suburb.

At the time, a lawyer representing him said he had been radicalised after separating from his wife and losing his job at SNCF, the French national railway. 

In 2013, he was sentenced to 17 years behind bars for ‘attempted murder in connection with a terrorist enterprise against three police officers’, ‘illegal possession of category A weapons or war materiel,’ and ‘armed rebellion’.

Brahim was later transferred from Belgium to a French prison to complete his sentence and was released last Christmas Eve, December 24.

Following his death, the country’s anti-terror department has launched a probe into an ‘attempted assassination of a person holding public authority in connection with a terrorist enterprise’ and ‘participation in a criminal terrorist association’.

Earlier on Friday, a police station in Aulnay-sous-Bois, Paris, where Brahim lived, received a phone call from him saying he was ‘going to shoot some soldiers’, an investigating source told Le Parisien.

Initial enquiries traced his mobile phone in the 8th arrondissement of Paris, not far from the Arc de Triomphe.

The 48-year-old had also been the subject of a terrorist file since December, and was flagged as ‘radicalised and potentially dangerous’.

And as a result, he was required to report daily to his local police station – a measure he had adhered to until today.  

A cordon remains in place on Champs-Élysées Avenue, with the nearby Charles-de-Gaulle-Etoile station closed due to ‘security measures’.

Luc, a bystander who arrived mere minutes after the incident, told The Sun: In the subway, we were asked to leave the train.

‘When we arrived at the scene, we immediately understood. The incident had just occurred five minutes ago, I think.’

Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez said: ‘A man attempted to attack members of the gendarmerie with a knife, including members of the gendarmerie band who were preparing for the ceremony.

‘This individual attempted to take the life of a gendarme.’

A statement from the National Anti-Terrorist Prosecutor’s Office read: ‘Following the events that occurred on February 13, 2026 in Paris, the National Anti-Terrorist Prosecutor’s Office has taken up these facts and opened a preliminary investigation.

‘A magistrate from the National Anti-Terrorist Prosecutor’s Office is travelling to the scene in Paris.’

Source: Dailymail.co.uk | Read the Full Story…