French president calls church attack “heinous terrorist act”

Two attackers took hostages inside a French church during morning Mass on Tuesday near the city of Rouen, killing an 86-year-old priest by slitting his throat before being shot and killed by police, French officials said.

Police surrounded the church and shot the two men as they exited the building, said a spokesman for the Interior Ministry.

According to The Sun, citing French TV news channel I-Tele, said one of the two terrorists lived near the church and traveled to Syria in 2015 in an attempt to join ISIS, but was arrested in Turkey.

France has been concerned about the threat against churches ever since Sid Ahmed Ghlam, a 24-year-old Algerian IT student, was arrested in Paris in April last year on suspicion of killing a woman who was found shot dead in her auto, and of planning an attack on a church.

Some French politicians expressed frustration after the latest attack, with an ongoing polemic raging in France over whether the government had done enough to secure the Riviera city of Nice during Bastille Day celebrations.

IS says Bouhlel staged the attack “in response to calls to target nations of coalition states” fighting the jihadist group.

“The Christian community is very affected”.

He added the attacker “went to Turkey and security services were alerted after this”.

Lebrun said in a statement that the “Catholic church can not take up any other weapons but prayer and brotherhood among men”.

The Islamic State group issued a statement published by the IS-affiliated Aamaq news agency which said the attack was carried out by “two soldiers of the Islamic State”.

At the Vatican, spokesman the Rev. Federico Lombardi issued a statement in the pontiff’s name saying that Francis is “particularly shocked because this awful violence took place in a church, in which God’s love is announced, with the barbarous killing of a priest and the involvement of the faithful”. France is also under a state of emergency and has extra police presence in the wake of the July 14 Nice attack.

Prime Minister Manuel Valls said he was, “horrified by this barbaric attack at a church in Seine-Maritime”.

Earlier, French President Francois Hollande travelled to Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray and said the attackers had pledged allegiance to ISIS in what he called a “vile terrorist attack”. “Hamel spent most of his working life in north-west France, including more than 30 years at St-Étienne”, said The Guardian.

The town mayor, Hubert Wulfranc, in tears, denounced the “barbarism” and, breaking down, pleaded, “Let us together be the last to cry”.

“We are facing yet another trial and the threat levels are extremely high and will remain extremely high”. “We have to win that war”, Hollande told the media after the hostage situation was neutralised.

Raid special intervention forces were searching the church and its perimeter for possible explosives and terrorism investigators were summoned.

French President Francois Hollande says the attackers claimed to be from IS, while the group says they were its “soldiers”. He murdered a young woman after commandeering her vehicle and shot himself in the foot.

Both attackers were killed outside the church, said a spokesperson for the French interior minister.