Second France church attacker identified from DNA, officials say

Details of the two killers are slowly beingf released by French polic and judicial sources, who say both were on the security services’ watchlist.

French police received a tip-off about a planned attack in the days before the killing of a priest in Normandy, sources close to the investigation have said.

France was already in a state of shock less than two weeks after the Nice truck attack. They are being bolstered by tens of thousands of police and reservists.

Kermiche, also 19, was not only known to security services, he wore an electronic bracelet and was awaiting trial for alleged membership of a terrorist organisation having been released on bail.

The pair made clear during the attack that they were acting on behalf of ISIS, French President Francois Hollande said following the attack. “It has lost its bearings and is clinging to a mindset that is out of touch with reality”. French investigators are still trying to piece together how they came to know each other and who else they might have been in contact with. “They were filming themselves preaching in Arabic in front of the altar”.

The deceased priest has been named as Father Jacques Hamel and has been described as an “extraordinary priest and a great man”. “He was a great man”. “I haven’t created a devil”, she told BFMTV.

He had attempted to enter Istanbul previous year but was sent back to Switzerland, where he had traveled from, and French authorities were alerted, the official said.

“We are urging all our clergy to be extra vigilant and to contact the police immediately at any hint of a problem”.

Hamel’s funeral will be held in the stunning Gothic cathedral of nearby Rouen next Tuesday, the city’s Catholic diocese said.

The archbishop of Paris, Cardinal Andre Vingt-Trois, called on Catholics to “overcome hatred that comes in their heart” and not to allow the Islamic State group “to set children of the same family upon each other.”.

People gather to pay respect with flowers and candles next to the church where an hostage taking left a priest dead the day before in Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray, Normandy, France, Wednesday, July 27, 2016.

“There were more and more police then a crescendo of gunfire”, a witness told France’s BFM TV news channel.

“It is hard to believe”. The Vatican condemned what it said was a “barbarous killing”.

One of the attackers was reportedly on the French government’s terror watchlist.

Fears of a terror attack remain high, with Cannes council announcing it will ban backpacks and other bags in which bombs could be hidden from its beaches, The Times reports. It has prioritised targeting France, which has been bombing the group’s bases in Iraq and Syria as part of a U.S.-led global coalition.

Mohammed Karabila, imam of the mosque in Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray, said the two religious communities had close relations in the small suberb.

After 84 people were killed in the attacks in Nice, The Christian Science Monitor noted that the seaside resort had become a locus of radicalization, with 120 people in the region leaving to join jihadist groups in Syria.