France - Priest Killed In French Hostage Knife Attack
It now being reported that the priest was beheaded.
Priest Killed In French Hostage Knife Attack
Two men sneak into a church, take hostages, kill a priest and reportedly shout "Allahu Akbar" in a "vile terrorist attack".
14:19, UK,
Tuesday 26 July 2016
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Two men armed with knives stormed a Catholic church in northern France and reportedly slit the throats of a priest and one other person.
The priest, 86-year-old Jacques Hamel, has died and French newspaper Le Figaro says the second victim is in a critical condition.
The knifemen got into the building through a back entrance, locked the doors and held five people hostage.
The assailants were "neutralised" by police as they came out of the church reportedly shouting "Allahu Akbar". French media reported shots being fired.
The priest, two nuns and two parishioners were detained during morning mass at the church in the town of Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray, near the city of Rouen in Normandy.
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Father Jacques Hamel was killed in the church by the hostage-takers
TV footage of the sealed-off crime scene showed one person being stretchered into an ambulance. The remaining hostages were brought out alive.
Islamic State claimed two of its "soldiers" carried out the deadly assault.
The identities of the attackers are unclear.
Anti-terror chiefs have been appointed to take charge of the investigation.
French President Francois Hollande, who is at the scene, said the attackers claimed to be members of the terror group and slammed what he described as a "vile terrorist attack".
He said IS has "declared war on us, we must fight this war by all means".
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French President Francois Hollande speaks to officials outside the church
A spokesman for the interior ministry, Pierre Henri Brandet, confirmed the priest was dead and said another hostage was "between life and death".
Mr Brandet told French TV channel BFMTV: "The two hostage-takers came out of the church armed and it was at that point that they were neutralised by the police."
He added a bomb disposal team and sniffer dogs were searching the church and its surroundings for possible explosives.
One hostage managed to escape during the three-hour ordeal and raised the alarm.
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The church where the attack took place
Emergency services were quickly on the scene and negotiators were summoned to talk to the hostage-takers.
French journalist Anne-Elisabeth Moutet told Sky News the assailants reportedly shouted "Allahu Akbar" on the steps of the church.
Sky Correspondent Mark White said one of the attackers was known to French police and was jailed for attempting to travel to Syria to join IS.
He was recently released back into the community tagged with an electronic monitor and was on a terror watch list.
Le Figaro also reported that the church targeted in Tuesday's attack was one of several Catholic sites on the hit-list of a 24-year-old Algerian student.
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Police at the scene in Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray
Sid Ahled Ghlam was arrested last year on suspicion of murdering a mother-of-one during a botched attempt to attack a church in Villejuif.
He was sent by Belgian Abdelhamid Abaaoud, who directed a cell which carried out the 13 November attacks in Paris during which 130 people were killed and the 22 March attacks in Brussels that killed 32 people.
French Prime Minister Manuel Valls condemned what he described as "a barbaric attack on a church".
"The whole of France and all Catholics are wounded. We will stand together," he wrote on Twitter.
Pope Francis also expressed his "pain and horror" and said he was appalled by the "barbaric killing".
The attack comes almost two weeks since the Bastille Day massacre in Nice which left 84 people dead after Tunisian Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhel drove a truck into a crowd celebrating the national holiday on 14 July.
France has been under a state of emergency since the terror attacks in the capital last year.
More follows...
http://news.sky.com/story/priest-kil...ttack-10512914
