Priest murdered during Mass in terror attack on Catholic church in France
(FOX)- Two knife-wielding attackers who had pledged allegiance to ISIS, shouting “Allahu Akbar,” slit the throat of an 84-year-old priest and critically wounded at least one other person during a Tuesday morning terror attack on a Catholic church near the Normandy city of Rouen, officials said.
The terrorists were later shot and killed by police. ISIS’ Amaq news agency said the France attack was carried out by two Islamic State “soldiers,” Reuters reported.
“[ISIS] has declared war on us,” French President Francois Hollande said Tuesday. “We must fight this war by all means, while respecting the rule of law — what makes us a democracy.”
The priest, identified by Sky News as Jacques Hamel, was dead at the scene, and another person, possibly a nun, was clinging to life, Interior Ministry spokesman Pierre-Henry Brandet said.
The killing Tuesday inside the church, in the small northwestern town of Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray, “is obviously a drama for the Catholic community, for the Christian community,” Brandet told reporters.
The church was reportedly on a “hit list” discovered at the residence of a would-be ISIS attacker in April 2015, The Sun reported. Sid Ghlam was believed to be planning “imminent attacks” in France when investigators arrested him. Officials allegedly uncovered an arsenal of weapons and found that Ghlam was talking with someone in Syria who had ordered him to strike specific churches — including the one in Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray.