The driver fled the scene and, several hours later, was shot and arrested by an elite police unit on a highway near the town of Marquise, Pas-de-Calais after attempting to ram a roadblock.

[8][9][10] On 23 August 2017 French prosecutors pressed terrorism charges against the suspect, 36-year-old Algerian Hamou Benlatrèche, who was said to have "radical beliefs and showed interest in the Islamic State group.

[18] The driver behind the wheel of a dark-colored BMW, was waiting in "ambush" in an alley from which he could see the soldiers emerge and begin to walk towards their patrol vehicles to start their morning's work.

[20] Several hours after the attack, at around 13:30,[17] the Rouen and Lille elite police unit Research and Intervention Brigade cornered and stopped the vehicle, a BMW 2 Series Active Tourer branded rental car, near a petrol station on a motorway in Marquise, Pas-de-Calais[4] after being spotted in Leulinghen-Bernes[17] some 260 kilometers (162 miles) north of the capital on the A16 autoroute.

[15][24] The driver who attempted to force the roadblock received five gunshot wounds and was sent to a hospital in serious condition, as was a policeman who was also injured by a stray bullet fired by one of his colleagues.

[25] The police officer reporting the vehicle had recorded its license number after driving on the highway north of Paris and noticing "a car passing at full speed with its windshield, hood and front bumper damaged.

[29] A member of the Tablighi Jamaat movement,[11] he was described by his uncle as "a faithful Muslim who prayed regularly"[24] and frequented a mosque near his home in Val-d'Oise,[29] but was not known to have been radicalised.

"[15][31] On 23 August 2017, the French anti-terrorism prosecutor Francois Molins pressed charges of "attempted murder of security forces in connection with a terrorist enterprise" against Benlatrèche, saying that he "had radical beliefs and showed interest in the Islamic State group.