Priest killed by IS militants in France church attack

PARIS — Two men linked to Islamic State stormed a parish church in northern France yesterday and took several hostages, killing a priest and critically injuring another person before the attackers were shot dead by the police.

Speaking at the scene of the attack in the Normandy town of Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray, French President Francois Hollande said France should “use all its means” in its war against the militant group, against which France has launched air strikes in Syria and Iraq.

The President called it a “dreadful terrorist attack” and told reporters the attackers had pledged allegiance to IS. The IS news agency Amaq said two of its “soldiers” had carried out the attack.

“We are put to the test yet again, said Mr Hollande. “The threat remains very high.”

Prime Minister Manuel Valls expressed horror at what he called “a barbaric attack on a church” adding: “The whole of France and all Catholics are wounded. We will stand together.”

A police source told Reuters it appeared that the priest, Reverend Jacques Hamel, had had his throat slit.

Church officials gave Father Hamel’s age as 84, but the archdiocese’s website said he had been born in 1930 and ordained in 1958.

Rev Federico Lombardi, a spokesman for the Vatican, said that Pope Francis was horrified at the “barbaric killing” of a priest and issued “the most severe condemnation of all forms of hatred”.

The attack hits particularly hard “because this horrific violence took place in a church, a sacred place in which the love of God is announced, and the barbaric murder of a priest and the involvement of the faithful,’’ added the Vatican.

The attack in France, and the ensuing police response, unfolded rapidly.

At 10.56am, the National Police urged residents via Twitter to keep away from the scene and not enter a security perimeter that had been established around the church. At 11.15am, the police said that the crisis was over, with two hostage-takers “neutralised”.

About an hour later, an Interior Ministry spokesman, Pierre-Henry Brandet, told reporters in Paris that the two attackers had entered the church — it was not immediately clear whether the Mass had ended — armed with weapons. “Were they knives? Were they handguns? It’s much too early to say,” he said.

The Rouen unit of the BRI, a police team that specialises in major crimes such as armed robberies and kidnappings, “arrived extremely quickly and positioned itself around the church”. The two hostage-takers left the church and were shot by the police, said Mr Brandet. A police bomb squad searched the church to make sure it had not been booby-trapped. Counsellors were sent to provide aid to three hostages who were rescued and who were not physically injured.

According to Father Moanda-Phuati, the church’s parish priest, its Tuesday Mass begins at 9am and lasts for about half an hour. Because of the summer holidays, attendance would have been low — fewer than 10 people, he estimated.

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

France has had three major terrorist attacks in the space of 19 months: An assault on the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo and other locations around Paris in January last year, which killed 17 people; coordinated attacks on a soccer stadium, the Bataclan concert hall, and cafes and restaurants in and around Paris on Nov 13, which killed 130 people; and a rampage on July 14 in the southern city of Nice by a man who rammed a cargo truck into a Bastille Day crowd and shot at the police with a handgun, killing 84 people. AGENCIES