The men thought to be the killers of a French priest pledged allegiance to Islamic State in a video that has been released by the jihadist group.
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The speaker in the video identified himself by the jihadi nom de guerre, Abul Jaleel al-Hanafi, and said his compatriot is called Ibn Omar.
The footage shows the pair with an IS banner, as one of them speaks in Arabic and declares backing for the group’s leader Abu Bakr al Baghdadi. According to witnesses, the attackers barged into the church while Rev. Hamel together with the three nuns and two parishioners were celebrating a morning mass. “And he was replying that France is the land of unbelievers”, Redwan said. She would later be taken to hospital where she was last night in critical condition. She said she is now “ready to put myself under the flags”.
“Luckily he was caught in time twice”, she told the Tribunal de Geneve newspaper.
Colonel Kemp told The Independent only bombing Isis in Syria and Iraq would make the group seem less successful – and so less inspirational – to would-be jihadists in Europe and elsewhere. A tracking bracelet was ordered to be attached to him.
He was not the first person to leave this corner of Normandy headed for Syria, nor the most notorious. Islamic State claimed that attack.
By the time Kermiche’s obsession with joining IS began, Hauchard had already been in Syria for almost 18 months, according to police.
Kermiche never made it that far. He was arrested by German officials and found to be using his brother’s identity in a bid to reach Syria.
France is struggling to protect its citizens from the threat of lone attackers or disenfranchised residents drawn by Islamic State propaganda and radicalism.
“He only spoke about Syria, and his dream of killing Bashar (al-Assad’s) soldiers”, they said. “He was inventing things”, the young man said.
Listening to shouts among the officers, the teen says, “They’ve just said that there are two people dead”.
“They were trying to evacuate the area because there is a school next door”.
He lived in his parents’ modest home – less than two kilometres from the church – where he spent much of the day under curfew, fitted with an electronic tag while awaiting trial for alleged links to terror.
In the wake of the church attack, President Francois Hollande insisted that the government will be determined to apply the anti-terrorist laws while respecting rights and freedom.
“Only in this way can we win the war against terror”, he said.
Adding that the country was “waging war”, he urged his compatriots to stay united and not turn against each other.
Hollande, meanwhile, presided over a defence council and cabinet meeting Wednesday in Paris after speaking with Roman Catholic, Orthodox, Muslim and Jewish leaders.
“We can not allow ourselves to be dragged into the politics of Daesh (Islamic State), which wants to set the children of the same family against each other”, the Archbishop of Paris, Cardinal André Vingt-Trois, told journalists after the meeting at the Elysee presidential palace. He did not elaborate.
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“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. Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said 4,000 members of the Sentinel military force will patrol Paris, while 6,000 will patrol in the provinces.
