On Tuesday, a 19-year-old man, known to intelligence services and wearing an electronic tag allowing police to trace him, killed with another attacker a priest in a church, northern France.
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Pope Francis, deeply saddened by the slaying of an elderly priest during Mass in a church in the French countryside, warned grimly Wednesday that the world is at war, but cautioned against labeling it a war among religions. It is not. All religions want peace. Two other attacks in Germany that killed 10 people in the past week had no evident connection with the group.
French President François Hollande – who traveled to the church near the city of Rouen in the Normandy region – said the attackers had pledged allegiance to the Islamic State. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to reveal details of the investigation, said the man was under police supervision and wore an electronic bracelet to monitor his movements. He was permitted to leave his home for four hours a day on weekdays and six hours on Saturdays.
“You can’t imagine that someone would do something like this”.
A nun, identified as Sister Danielle, described how Father Hamel was forced to kneel on the floor before his throat was cut.
Alexandre Herbert, 35, who lives in a nearby village and has aunts in the town, said the French “must not be afraid”.
Listening to shouts among the officers, the teen says, “They’ve just said that there are two people dead”. Find us on Facebook too! With 56 remaining summer events to protect, Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve stated on Wednesday that events without “optimal” security will be canceled.
“Following recent events in France, we are reiterating our protective security advice to Christian places of worship and have circulated specific advice today”.
“What has enabled France to break up a large number of terrorist networks is keeping these people under “S file” surveillance, which allows intelligence services to work without these individuals being aware”, he said on Europe 1 radio.
Lawmaker Marion Marechal-Le Pen, 26, tweeted she had made a decision to join the military reserves in response to the threat and invited “all young patriots to do the same”.
Hollande, meanwhile, presided over a defense council and Cabinet meeting in Paris after speaking with Roman Catholic, Orthodox, Muslim and Jewish leaders.
Her calls have since turned into a hashtag on social media #RevoirLorganisationDeLIslam that has begun trending in France, although numerous the reactions appear to be criticising the calls and saying that the majority should not be made to feel guilty for the actions of a few.
It also underscored the huge challenges for European security forces as Islamic State-inspired violence increasingly reaches beyond major urban centers and takes the form of local, even intimate, violence. Police said they killed two hostage-takers in the attack in the Normandy town of Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray, 125 kilometres (77 miles) north of Paris.
“They filmed themselves. It was like a sermon in Arabic around the altar”, the nun added.
She told BFM television: “They forced him to his knees”. But something along the lines of “you Christians, you’re eliminating us”.
As a long-time priest in a working-class town of almost 30,000, the 86-year-old clergyman was a source of comfort and strength for generations of local Catholics.
However, they were not able to arrive in time to save the life of 84-year-old Father Jacques Hamel. They also seriously wounded a churchgoer. Paris prosecutor Francois Molins said the other hostages were used as human shields to block police from entering.
The Paris prosecutor, Francois Molins, said the two attackers had knives and fake explosives – one a phoney suicide belt covered in tin foil. Officials said the attackers screamed “Allahu akbar” (God is great) as they slit his throat.
However, Amaq News, an ISIS-linked agency issued a statement last Tuesday saying that “the Normandy attackers were the terror outfit’s “soldiers”.
This incident is the third in 18 months in France that has been claimed by ISIS.
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He was placed under “judicial control” in March 2015 after trying to use his brother’s identification to go to Syria.
