Islamic State’s news agency on Wednesday posted a video of two men it said were those who attacked a church in France in which they pledged allegiance to the group’s leader.
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French authorities are again trying to establish whether the Normandy attackers were part of a network after IS claimed its “soldiers” were responsible.
Meanwhile, Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said France would bolster the operational reserve of its police force after 2,500 people asked to join up in the days after 84 people died in an IS-inspired attack on Bastille Day.
France’s anti-terrorism prosecutor said the man, identified as 19-year-old Adel Kermiche, also evaded police twice using relatives’ identities in attempts to reach Syria.
Residents of Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray were struggling to come to terms with the bloodshed in their small town, so far from France’s tourist hubs.
Mr Hollande gathered with the leaders of the country’s main religions a day after two attackers entered a church in the northern town of Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray during morning mass, and killed an 85-year-old priest. I am not speaking of a war of religions, religions don’t want war.
Police later shot dead the two terrorists as they ran from the church shouting “Allahu Akbar”.
In an editorial, Le Monde newspaper wrote that France was under attack as it had one of the biggest Muslim communities in Europe.
Pope Francis said “the world is at war” but argued that religion was not the cause.
Paris prosecutor Francois Molins said Kermiche’s tag was deactivated for a few hours every morning, corresponding with the time of the attack.
“Based on our searches of C-SPAN closed-captioning text, Congressional Quarterly transcripts and other video archiving services, we couldn’t find any speaker who mentioned “ISIS, ‘ “Islamic” ‘terror, ‘ ‘terrorist, ‘ or ‘terrorism” during the first day of the convention”, reports PolitiFact.
The church is located about 104 kilometers north of Paris, where in November members of IS killed 130 people during coordinated attacks on the city. He was then held in custody until March this year.
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Mohammed Karabila, leader of the regional council of Muslim worship in the area, had just two questions following the attack: “How could a person wearing an electronic bracelet carry out an attack?”
