Tired of ads? Subscribers enjoy a distraction-free reading experience.
Click here to subscribe today or Login.

PARIS — Two attackers backing the Islamic State stormed a village church during Mass in northern France on Tuesday, taking hostages and slitting the throat of a 86-year-old priest before police commandos shot and killed the assailants, authorities said.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack near Rouen in France’s Normandy region. But French President Francois Hollande described the attackers as terrorists who had pledged allegiance to Islamic State.

The attack also will likely put further pressures on European security officials amid a series of attacks believed inspired by the Islamic State in France and neighboring Germany that have claimed nearly 100 lives this month.

Another person held by the hostage-takers at the church suffered life-threatening injuries, said Interior Ministry spokesman Pierre-Henry Brandet.

France remains under an extended state of emergency after a truck rampage through Bastille Day crowds in the Riviera city of Nice on July 14, killing at least 84 people.

Hollande said the country needed to use “all means” against the Islamic State, but gave no details on possible new crackdowns or expansion of French support to the U.S.-led coalition waging airstrikes against the militants’ strongholds in Iraq and Syria.

Hollande was joined by Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve at the site of the church attack in Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray, about 35 miles southeast of the port of Le Havre.

An official at the Archdiocese of Rouen identified the slain priest as Jacques Hamel.

At the Vatican, spokesman Rev. Federico Lombardi denounced the “barbarous killing” of the church attack.

Lombardi said Pope Francis was shaken by “the pain and horror of this absurd violence” and “condemned, in the most radical way, any form of hate.”

The Islamic State has destroyed pre-Islamic temples and other ancient sites in Syria and Iraq, including a more than 1,400-year-old Christian monastery near the northern Iraqi city of Mosul.

But attacks linked to the group in the West and elsewhere have so far concentrated on public places and tourist areas.

Brandet, the Interior Ministry spokesman, called the bloodshed “obviously a drama for the Catholic community, for the Christian community.”

French officials have linked at least one previous suspect with plotting a possible church attack.

In April 2015, an Algerian man, Sid Ahmed Ghlam, was arrested in connection with the slaying of woman. He was accused of putting together a cache of weapons and body armor. French authorities claim he planned to attack a church in the Paris suburb of Villejuif.

In this grab made from video, police officers speak to a driver as they close off a road during a hostage situation in Normandy, France, Tuesday, July 26, 2016. Two attackers seized hostages in a church near the Normandy city of Rouen on Tuesday, killing one hostage by slitting their throat before being killed by police, a security official said. The identities of the attackers and motive for the attack are unclear, according to the official, who was not authorized to be publicly named. (BFM via AP)
https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/web1_111565325-fe0a4da2f20449e8a5e62f41de570904.jpg.optimal.jpgIn this grab made from video, police officers speak to a driver as they close off a road during a hostage situation in Normandy, France, Tuesday, July 26, 2016. Two attackers seized hostages in a church near the Normandy city of Rouen on Tuesday, killing one hostage by slitting their throat before being killed by police, a security official said. The identities of the attackers and motive for the attack are unclear, according to the official, who was not authorized to be publicly named. (BFM via AP)

James McAuley and Brian Murphy

The Washington Post