Man shot and killed at Marseille train station after attacking people with knife

A man has been shot and killed by French soldiers at a train station in Marseille after killing two passengers, including one who had her throat slit.

A French police source has said the attack at Saint Charles station is being treated as a terrorist incident, with an unnamed official telling France’s Le Monde newspaper that the knife-weilding assailant cried “Allahu Akbar” (”Allah is greater”) as he slashed passengers.

Police said they had “neutralised” the attacker, and urged people to stay away from the area as they carried out an evacuation of the station in the southern French city.

Isis claimed responsibility for the attack, saying one of its “soldiers” acted in response to the group's calls to target countries involved in the US-led coalition fighting IS in Syria and Iraq.

The man who carried out the attack was in his twenties and of North African appearance, reports say.

The deaths were confirmed by police chief Olivier de Mazieres, who told AFP: “Two victims have died by knife.”

The two passengers killed as they waited on the platform were both women, and were aged 17 and 20, according to France’s Interior Minister Gerard Collomb.

The attack took place in the early afternoon, with witnesses on social media speaking of a panic as military forces intervened and police flooded the area.

According to BFMTV, the attacker was killed by soldiers who were already in the station as part of Operation Sentinelle, which sees combat troops patrol streets and protect key sites amid an ongoing state of emergency.

French newspaper Le Figaro reported that the Mayor of Marseille Jean-Claude Gaudin paid tribute to the Sentinelle military forces who gunned down the assailant “at a time when the number of victims could have been higher”.

France has been hit by a recent wave of terrorist atrocities carried out by Islamist extremists, including stabbings, shootings and lorry attacks which have now killed at least 241 people since 2015.

The French government launched Operation Sentinelle in January 2015 following a string of fatal attacks in and around Paris, deploying 10,000 soldiers and 4,700 police and gendarmes to areas which authorities believe could be terrorist targets.

Transport hubs, tourist attractions and religious buildings were all placed under armed guard as part of the huge operation.

The Saint Charles station was the scene of an acid attack last month, when a woman threw a corrosive substance at a group of American tourists, although authorities said the incident was mental-health related and not a terrorist attack.