French police received a tip-off about a planned attack in the days before the killing of a priest in Normandy, sources close to the investigation have said.
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One of the two church attackers has already been named by police as 19-year-old Adel Kermiche.
The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) released on Wednesday a video that purportedly shows the two men pledging allegiance to the group, which is led by Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and operates in parts of Syria and Iraq.
France has been under a state of emergency since the Paris terror attacks in November, and authorities have struggled to monitor thousands of domestic Islamic radicals on their radar.
A security official confirmed that he was the unidentified man pictured on a photo distributed to French police on July 22 with a warning that he could be planning an attack.
Kermish also had been placed on the “S” security list but had been released on bail pending trial for terrorist activities and twice trying to get to Syria.
French President Francois Hollande today brushed aside comments by White House hopeful Donald Trump that France was “no longer” the country it was because of a string of deadly jihadist attacks.
In a televised address to the nation Tuesday, he said: “To attack a church, kill a priest, is to profane the republic”.
Father Hamel, two Catholic nuns, and two parishioners were taken hostage by the assailants. They were shot dead by police.
According to Amaq, the two were “soldiers of the Islamic State who carried out the attack in response to calls to target countries of the Crusader coalition”.
France remains on high alert after Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel ploughed a truck into a crowd of people celebrating Bastille Day in Nice, killing 84 people and injuring more than 300.
“But he didn’t go to Syria”, said the official who was not authorized to discuss the case and asked not to be identified by name.
Other people who knew him describe him as a “ticking time bomb”, and the local mosque had asked him to not attend prayers after his second detainment.
Hamel was born in 1930 in Darnetal, a town near Saint-Etienne du Rouvray, and was ordained in 1958, according to information on the diocesan website.
Hollande said parliamentary consultations about creating the Guard would begin in September “so that this force can be created as fast as possible to protect the French”, Agence France-Presse reported.
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The source said that Turkey was informed by French authorities on May 12, 2015 that Adel Kermiche meant to travel from Geneva to Istanbul Sabiha Gökçen Airport (SAW) under the name “Kevin Kermiche”.
