PARIS - Six soldiers have been wounded, two seriously, after a dark BMW rammed into them in a Paris suburb on Wednesday morning.

The incident occurred at the Place de Verdun in the north-western area of Levallois-Perret. Authorities are checking video surveillance of the area.

The driver left the scene in the vehicle and remains on the run, police said.

A Paris police spokesman said the vehicle appeared to clearly target the soldiers, but the motive is unclear. Levallois-Perret Mayor Patrick Balkany told BFMTV it was an “odious attack” and said it was “without a doubt a deliberate act.”

The soldiers were on an Operation Sentinelle routine patrol, which was launched after the Charlie Hebdo attack in January 2015 to protect civilians from terror attacks.

Witnesses described seeing a BMW with one person on board waiting in a cul-de-sac near a building used for soldiers from the Sentinelle operation. One official said the attacker hit just as a group of soldiers emerged from the building to board vehicles for a new shift.

The incident is the latest of several attacks targeting security forces in France. It comes four days after a teenager with psychiatric problems tried to attack security forces guarding the Eiffel Tower. 

Two months ago a police officer was shot dead on the Champs Elysees.

France remains on maximum alert after a string of attacks in which Islamist militants or Islamist-inspired attackers have killed more than 230 people over the past two years.