French tourist injured in Beijing knife attack

A man attacked a French tourist with a knife Saturday near Beijing's Tiananmen Square, in the second knife attack in the area in two days, state media reported.

The woman was slightly injured and was taken to a hospital, the official Xinhua News Agency said. It did not identify her.

China's capital has been tightening security ahead of the country's Oct. 1 celebration of 60 years of Communist rule. Just hours before the attack, the area had been shut down for a military parade rehearsal, with armed tactical police units and paramilitary police lining avenues around the square.

On Thursday, another knife-wielding man stabbed two guards to death and wounded 14 in the same area.

There was no immediate indication the two attacks were related.

Xinhua said a 41-year-old man from Nanchang city in southeast Jiangxi province injured the French woman Saturday on Dashilan, Beijing's oldest commercial street, near the southern end of Tiananmen Square.

It said patrolling policemen caught the man at the scene. A woman who answered the phone at the Dashilan police station said she was not clear about the attack.

State media said Thursday's attacker, a 46-year-old man, was drunk at the time.