3rd Person Dies From Paris Bombing

The bombing of a Paris commuter train claimed a third fatality Thursday, when a Moroccan man died of wounds from Tuesday’s explosion, a hospital official said.

A spokesman for a public agency representing all Paris hospitals said the third fatality was a hospitalized 25-year-old, whose name was not released. Three of the 88 wounded were still in critical condition.

The bomb ripped through a rush-hour rapid transit train Tuesday evening, instantly killing a newly married Canadian woman, Helene Viel, and a Frenchman from New Caledonia, Lucien Devambez.

Viel had arrived in Paris on Sunday with her husband, Frank Stonebanks, to find an apartment after Stonebanks learned his employer planned to transfer him to the French capital from Montreal. Stonebanks remains hospitalized.

Beefed-up security measures were in force around the nation Thursday. Barricades went up outside schools, and 1,800 extra soldiers and police were patrolling train stations, airports and tourist sites.

Investigators were said to be focusing on Algerian Islamic militants as prime suspects in the case. But they appeared to have no hard evidence of that, except for similarities between the nail-packed gas canister bomb and those used in a wave of attacks in 1995, most claimed by Algerian militants.