Priest killed, one wounded in IS attack at Normandy church

CAIRO/ PARIS, July 26

Two attackers linked to the Islamic State killed a priest with a blade and seriously wounded another hostage in a church in northern France on Tuesday before being shot dead by French police.

The attack took place during morning mass at the Saint-Etienne parish church, south of Rouen in Normandy. Five people were initially taken hostage.

A police source said it appeared that the priest had had his throat slit.

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A statement by the group’s Amaq news agency said Islamic State 'soldiers' had carried out the attack.

“They carried out the operation in response to the call to target the countries of the crusader coalition," the Amaq statement said.

A source close to investigations claimed French police have arrested one person in connection with the attack.

A nun who escaped the scene said the two attackers forced the elderly priest to kneel before killing him and also filmed the murdero.

The nun was one of several people taken hostage by the knifemen during a morning mass at the church in Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray, near the northern city of Rouen.

"They forced him to kneel and he tried to defend himself and that is how the drama started," the nun who gave her name as Sister Danielle told RMC radio, adding that she fled at the moment that one of the attackers killed the priest.

The attack is the latest in a string of deadly assaults in Europe, including the mass killing in Nice on Bastille Day and four incidents in Germany. Many of the attacks have had links to Islamist militants.

The Archbishop of Rouen identified the slain priest as Father Jacques Hamel. The Vatican condemned what it said was a "barbarous killing".

French President Francois Hollande said in a statement at the scene in Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray, south of Rouen, on Tuesday: “Daesh has declared war on us, we must fight this war by all means, while respecting the rule of law, what makes us a democracy”, using an Arab acronym for the Islamist extremist group.

French Interior Ministry spokesman Pierre-Henry Brandet told France Info radio that the perpetrators have been killed by France's BRI, its elite police anti-crime force, when they came out of the church.

He said that bomb squad officers aided by sniffer dogs had been scouring the church for any possible explosives.

Prime Minister Manuel Valls branded the attack "barbaric" and said it was a blow to all Catholics and the whole of France.

"We will stand together," Valls said on Twitter. 

Pressure

The attack will heap yet more pressure on Hollande to regain control of national security, with France already under a state of emergency 10 months ahead of a presidential election.

The Normandy attack came 12 days after a 31-year-old Tunisian Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel ploughed his heavy goods truck into a crowd of revellers in the French Riviera city of Nice, killing 84 people. Islamic State claimed that attack.

"Horror. Everything is being done to trigger a war of religions," tweeted Jean-Pierre Raffarin, a former conservative prime minister who now heads the Senate's foreign affairs committee.

Hollande and Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve arrived at the scene of the attack where they met with members of the emergency services.

Cazeneuve has come under fire from Conservative politicians for not doing enough to prevent the Bastille Day Nice attack.

French lawmakers approved a six-month extension of emergency rule after the July 14 attack while the Socialist government also said it would step up strikes against Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.  — Reuters