France has been a prime target of ISIS, which regularly calls for supporters to launch attacks against the country, a member of the worldwide coalition carrying out air strikes against the extremist group in Iraq and Syria.
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Police managed to rescue the only three other people inside the church in the small northwestern town of Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray, he told reporters. Two of the hostages were nuns and two were parishioners, The Guardian said.
One of the hostages is in a critical condition in hospital.
According to la Tribune de Geneve, one of the two attackers was a 19-year-old French national.
“Strike at any moment, in any place, and any circumstance: such is the criminal and fanatic propaganda of the terrorist organisation Daesh which terrifyingly permeates the minds of people of varied profiles”, said Molins. The Guardian said the priest was born in Seine-Maritime, France, in 1930 and was ordained in 1958. He had been here for many years; he lived in the rectory here.
“The threat is very high”. “It’s this effort by the Islamic State and their supporters to drive a further wedge between broader Western society and Muslims”.
“They recorded themselves. They did a sort of sermon around the altar, in Arabic”.
The priest was killed by the two hostages takers who were later shot dead by police units. The Daily Mail said Hamel was beheaded.
The priest, who was 86 years old, was killed from stabs to the neck and torso, the Paris prosecutor said. “And that’s when the tragedy happened”.
The Irish Times says the nun describe the priest being made to kneel to French radio station RMC.
The canonization process is a lengthy one involving two miracles attributed to the person’s intercession, but in the case of a martyr only one miracle is needed, after beatification.
One of two men who stormed a church in France on Tuesday, taking hostages and killing a priest in what appears a terror-inspired plot, was a prior arrestee on probation and wearing a surveillance tag, authorities said.
The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the first attack in a church in the West.
Reuters said the Islamic State had “claimed” the attack.
“The person who committed this odious act is known and he has been followed by the police for at least 1 1/2 years”.
The identities of the attackers and motive for the attack are unclear, according to the security official, who was not authorized to be publicly named.
The incident in Normandy ended with police shooting and killing the attackers.
Earlier Tuesday, Archbishop Georges Pontier, president of the French bishops conference, said the attack in France “shocked us, it touched us, and revolted us”. I would invite non-believers to join in the cry.
The church targeted in Tuesday’s attack was one of several Catholic sites on the hit-list of a 24-year-old Algerian student.
By going after churches, ISIS and its supporters are singling out Christians, and trying to usher in a new war of religions.
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Italian politician Roberto Maroni urged the Pope to make the him “St Jacques”.
