Hawzah News Agency (Paris - France) - Police arrested two white female suspects who allegedly shouted ‘dirty Arabs!’ as they launched the attack. They are being held on suspicion of attempted murder, city prosecutors said. It follows rising tensions over the beheading of a teacher in the Paris suburbs last Friday by a radicalized terrorist infuriated that cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed were shown to children.

Members of France’s five million plus Muslim community have complained of increased Islamophobia caused by a government clampdown on mosques and Muslim organizations. The victims of the latest attacks on Sunday have been identified as French women from an Algerian background named only as Kenza, 49, and Amel, who is a few years younger. Kenza was stabbed six times and ended up in hospital with a punctured lung, while surgery was carried out on one of Amel’s hands, said an investigating source. No information was initially released about the attack on, leading to uproar on social media, where confirmed images from the scene circulated.

A chilling video records screaming as the stabbings are carried out on Sunday evening. It was not until Tuesday that a statement from Paris Police read: ‘On October 18, at around 8pm, the police intervened following an emergency call from two women wounded by knives on the Champs-de-Mars’ – the Field of Mars by the Eiffel Tower. A source at the Paris prosecutors’ office confirmed on Wednesday: ‘An investigation for attempted murder has been opened in connection with the stabbings.’ One of the attacked women wore a face covering, but it was not clear whether this was because of the Coronavirus pandemic, or for cultural or religious reasons, said the source. Kenza told Liberation newspaper: ‘We were a family, five adults in all and four children.

‘We had gone out for a walk. At the level of the Eiffel Tower there is a small rather dark park, we took a little tour in it. ‘As we walked, there were two dogs that come towards us. The children got scared. My cousin, who was veiled, asked the two women if it was possible to keep their dogs with them because the children were afraid.’ The dog owners refused to put their animals on a leash, and a furious argument followed – one that included racist insults. It is then – around 8pm and in darkness – that the two women with the dogs allegedly pulled out a knife, and launched themselves at Kenza and Amel. ‘One of the two took out a knife, she slashed me on the skull, on the back on the ribs and there was a third blow on the arm,’ said Kenza. ‘They then attacked my cousin.’