Two armed men with ISIS connections stormed a French church during Mass early Tuesday morning, took five hostages and beheaded one priest, before being shot dead by the police as they tried to flee the church, French officials said. One of the other hostages—which included a priest, two nuns and two church attendees—was seriously wounded.
The two men allegedly pledged allegiance to the Islamic State before entering the church in the Normandy region of France, according to accounts from several witnesses on the grounds. The witnesses reported reported having hearing them shout: “Daesh” (the Arab acronym for “Islamic State”).
A nun who managed to escape during the attack later described the scene in the church. “They stormed in. They took over the space. They were speaking Arabic. I saw a knife and left when they began to attack the father Jacques. I don’t even know if they realized I was leaving,” she said. The priest, Father Jacques Hame, whose throat was slit, was 86 years old.
The attackers weren’t publicly identified, but one of them was known by French counterterrorism services, Le Figaro reported. He was a fiche “S”— a designation used by French law enforcement to flag individuals considered serious threats to national security. The man, a 19-year-old French citizen, had tried twice to reach Syria in recent years, once via Munich and once via Geneva.
In the second attempt, he was briefly imprisoned in Switzerland before being extradited to France, where he was arrested and charged with criminal association and relations with a terrorist enterprise. He was released with electronic monitoring, despite an appeal by Paris’ anti-terrorist prosecutor. Since then, the alleged jihadist reportedly had been under house arrest.
Speaking from Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray, French President Francois Hollande called the priest’s slaughter an “ignoble terrorist attack” before declaring: “We must wage war against the Islamic State by all means.”
Leader of the France’s far-right party FN, Marine Le Pen, was quick to react on Twitter, saying “the modus operandi makes one fear for another attack by Islamist terrorists.”
L'épouvante encore à #SaintEtienneduRouvray. Le modus operandi fait évidemment craindre un nouvel attentat de terroristes islamistes. MLP
— Marine Le Pen (@MLP_officiel) July 26, 2016
Her niece, Marion Marechal Le Pen, also expressed indignation on Twitter. She said: “They kill our children, murdering our policemen and slaughtering our priests. Wake up!”.
Ils tuent nos enfants, assassinent nos policiers et égorgent nos prêtres. Réveillez-vous ! #SaintEtienneduRouvray
— Marion Le Pen (@Marion_M_Le_Pen) July 26, 2016
