STRASBOURG, France -- Hundreds of security forces combed eastern France for a 29-year-old man with a long criminal record who shouted "God is great!" in Arabic and sprayed gunfire during a deadly rampage in Strasbourg's famous Christmas market, officials said.
Tuesday night's attack at France's largest Christmas market killed two people, left a third brain-dead and injured 12.
National police distributed a photo of the wounded fugitive, identified as Cherif Chekatt, with the warning: "Individual dangerous, above all do not intervene."
Interior Minister Christophe Castaner told lawmakers that the French native had run-ins with police starting at age 10 and his first conviction at age 13.
Chekatt had been convicted 27 times, mostly in France but also in Switzerland and Germany, for crimes including armed robbery. He had been flagged for extremism and was on a watch list.
Chekatt was flagged as a potential extremist, but Castaner said "the signs had been weak."
A terrorism investigation was opened, but the exact motive remained unclear.
The suspect's parents and two brothers, also known for radicalism, were detained, a judicial official said.
Prosecutor Remy Heitz said the man attacked with a handgun and a knife about 8 p.m. Tuesday, and was shot in the arm during an exchange of fire with soldiers during his rampage. He then took a taxi to another part of the city, boasting of the attack to the driver, and later exchanged more gunfire with police and disappeared, Heitz said.
Witnesses described shots and screams after the gunman opened fire and yelled "God is great!" in Arabic, the prosecutor added. Large parts of the city were under lockdown for hours.
The dead included a Thai tourist, 45-year-old Anupong Suebsamarn, according to the Thai Foreign Ministry and the website of the Khao Sod newspaper. It quoted his uncle as saying he and his wife had originally planned to visit Paris, but the protests there prompted them to change plans and go to Strasbourg instead.
One Italian was reported to be among the wounded. Italian media said Antonio Megalizzi, 28, was in critical condition. Italian daily La Repubblica reported he was in Strasbourg to follow the session of the European Parliament.
After initially reporting that three people had died, authorities revised that and said one was brain-dead, while 12 people were wounded, six of them gravely.
About 720 police, soldiers and SWAT team officers in Strasbourg were being reinforced with 500 more soldiers and another 1,300 in the coming days to guard public places, especially other Christmas markets, Prime Minister Edouard Philippe said after a crisis meeting. The government raised the security level after the attack.
The attack in the heart of old Strasbourg, near its famous cathedral and within the Christmas market that draws many tourists, unsettled the border city that also is home to the European Parliament.
The German government said it had stepped up controls on the border with France but did not change its threat level.
"All terrorist attacks touch all of France, and it's plain to see each of the attacks have hit a highly symbolic point or moment," Philippe told parliament. He listed violence since 2015 that killed more than 200: at the Charlie Hebdo satiric newspaper, a Kosher store, restaurants, bars and a concert hall in Paris; along the famed seaside promenade in Nice; and even inside a church in a quiet suburb of the northern city of Rouen, among others.
Strasbourg's Christmas market "is a family and brotherly celebration that speaks about hope and what unites us. It's this celebration that was hit yesterday by a terrorist act," he said.
The city was in mourning, with candles lit at the site of the attack, and the Christmas market was closed at least through today, according to regional prefect Jean-Luc Marx.
The attack came as President Emmanuel Macron sought to take back control of the nation after a month of anti-government protests that have spread violence across the country. It came only 24 hours after he broke a long public silence and appealed for calm amid the mushrooming "yellow vest" protest movement that seeks a better standard of living for ordinary citizens. He offered a package of measures, but it wasn't clear if that would halt the weekend protests.
"The terrorist threat is still at the core of our nation's life," government spokesman Benjamin Griveaux quoted Macron as saying at the weekly Cabinet meeting.
Information for this article was contributed by Angela Charlton, John Leicester, Sylvie Corbet, Geir Moulson, Kaweewit Kaewjinda and Colleen Barry of The Associated Press.
A Section on 12/13/2018