Six survivors, who were hiding in the supermarket, accused the channel of endangering their lives by revealing the location of their hideout live on air.
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“We must fight the terrorists. These people are insane – they justify their actions with religion, but religion has nothing to do with it”.
Report from Chicago Tribune says, “It was the first extremist’s group attack against a church in the West, and fulfills longstanding threats against “crusaders” in what the militants paint as a centuries-old battle for power”.
“It’s completely barbaric what they’ve done”. He said local government officials should cancel events “if conditions do not allow for optimal security”.
While it is fair to debate whether such murders in France should be viewed any differently to similar atrocities in Syria or Iraq, Allen said it would certainly increase the pressure on the church to take a tougher line in defence of its own clergy.
“From the moment when you touch a religion, you attack the nation, and you attack a people”.
Deputy Assistant Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police Neil Basu said: “Following recent events in France, we are reiterating our protective security advice to Christian places of worship and have circulated specific advice today”.
Cannes Mayor David Lisnard announced the French Riviera city had passed a bylaw banning people from carrying suitcases and large luggage – that could be used to hide bombs – on public transport or along the beachfront until the end of October.
Muslim leader Dalil Boubakeur, rector of Paris’s Grand Mosque, expressed “profound sorrow” after the attack which he described as a “blasphemous sacrilege”. He refused to divulge man’s name and had no information on the second attacker.
“The people of Germany are filled with grief over the fact that France has once again been the victim of inhuman violence”, Merkel said. “It’s revolting to watch them bickering!” she said on Twitter. Sister Danielle said that she witnessed the two kill the 86-year-old priest and then deliver a sermon in Arabic at the altar. “They forced him to his knees”.
An 87-year-old man, who had been forced to film the murder of the priest, survived by playing dead after he was stabbed four times in the neck, arms and back.
A priest was killed and another person seriously injured when two members from an Islamic extremist group stormed the Church of Saint-Etienne du Rouvray in Normandy, France, on July 26. One had three knives and a fake explosives belt; the other carried a kitchen timer wrapped in aluminum foil and had fake explosives in his backpack. The two jihadists were gunned down by police after leaving the church, marching three hostages in front of them, shouting “Allahu akbar” (God is greatest).
An official in the prosecutor’s office said it was “very probable” that the man, identified as Abdel-Malik Nabil Petit Jean, was the same man pictured in a photo distributed to police services four days before the attack and obtained by The Associated Press. ISIS has taken credit for the attack in a statement, calling the two men “soldiers” of the Islamic State.
CNN can not independently confirm the claim, and no evidence has surfaced showing ISIS had been in direct contact with the attackers.
Molins said Kermiche attempted to leave the country twice for Syria in 2015.
He was placed under “judicial control” in March 2015 after trying to use his brother’s identification to go to Syria. Two months later he left the country for Syria using a cousin’s identification card.
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Authorities in Turkey stopped Kermiche and deported him to France via Switzerland, from where he had entered Turkey. He was identified through a monitoring apparatus (electronic tag) he got from immigration law violation.
