Two hostage takers slit the throat of an 84 year old priest, killing him in a church near the northern city of Rouen, police then killed the hostage takers.
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French Prime Minister Manuel Valls warned earlier this week that France will face more attacks as it struggles to handle extremists returning from jihad in the Middle East and those radicalised at home by devouring propaganda on the internet. They’ve been under new strain since an attack in the southern city of Nice on Bastille Day – July 14 – that killed 84 people and was claimed by IS.
Kermich is understood to be the attacker who forced Father Jacques Hamel to kneel while his accomplice, who also lived locally and was on a terrorist watchlist, filmed the muslim decapitation ritual, according to the Daily Mail.
A priest was killed and one person was seriously injured, said the Ministry of Interior.
Two Islamic State knifemen who brutally murdered a Catholic priest forced him to kneel as they filmed themselves murdering him.
The Islamic State group said Tuesday that two of its “soldiers” stormed a French church and slit a priest’s throat, the latest attack in a country already shaken to its core by a series of terror strikes.
Reuters said the Islamic State had “claimed” the attack. While three hostages were rescued in good condition, another was taken away on a stretcher.
“The United States condemns in the strongest possible terms the horrific terrorist attack today at a Catholic church in Normandy, France”, US National Security Council spokesman Ned Price said in a statement.
The Telegraph says the terrorists shouted “Daesh” before murdering the priest; The Sun, quoting French television station i-Tele, said one of them was previously convicted of terrorism and was living with his parents on an ankle bracelet but was allowed to be unsupervised during a four-hour period during which the attack occurred.
Hollande called it a “vile terrorist attack” and said it’s another more sign that France is at war with IS, which has claimed a string of attacks on France.
Besides the slain priest, two nuns and two churchgoers were taken hostage, CNN French affiliate BFMTV reported.
Seguin says, “everyone knew him very well”.
The Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve is on his way to the scene.
“We are particularly shocked because this frightful violence took place in a Church, in which God’s love is announced, with the barbarous killing of a priest and the involvement of the faithful”, the Pope said in a statement released by the Holy See. “And I invite all non-believers to unite with this cry”, Lebrun wrote in a statement from Krakow, Poland, where Pope Francis was expected.
Anti-terrorism investigators have been summoned in the case, Brandet said.
Rev Lombardi called the attack “more bad news, that adds to a series of violence in these days that have left us upset, creating enormous pain and worry”.
Lebrun said in a statement that the “Catholic church can not take up any other weapons but prayer and brotherhood among men”.
France has been concerned about the threat against churches ever since Sid Ahmed Ghlam, a 24-year-old Algerian IT student, was arrested in Paris in April last year on suspicion of killing a woman who was found shot dead in her vehicle.
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He was sent by Belgian Abdelhamid Abaaoud, who directed a cell which carried out the 13th November attacks in Paris during which 130 people were killed and the 22 March attacks in Brussels that killed 32 people.
