The situation is reported to have broken out at the Church of the Gambetta in Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray
A hostage situation has broken out at a church in France as
two knifemen are reportedly holding a priest, two nuns and several worshippers.
Police are at the scene at the Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray commune in the Haute-Normandie region of northern France.
The hostage takers are reported to have stormed the Church of the Gambetta at around 9.45am local time (8.45am UK time).
A large area has been evacuated and cordoned off around the scene.
One nearby resident said he was walking to church as the horror broke out and he was told to go home and stay indoors by armed officers.
© frederic veille
Comment: Update 1The two men with knives were
shot and killed by police snipers after they ran out of the church. They had killed the 84-year-old priest by slitting his throat. Another hostage was seriously wounded. One other person believed to be connected with the attacks has been arrested. While police had earlier said they could not confirm the motive or identities of the attackers, since then Daesh's propaganda outlet has claimed responsibility for the attack and eyewitnesses claim the men shouted "Daesh". This report was later
discredited (Daesh doesn't call itself Daesh). Now they're saying they yelled, "Allahu Akbar!" as they left the church, at which point they were shot by snipers.
One of the attackers had tried to go to Syria last year but had been seized in Turkey and deported. Arrested in May 2015, he spent almost a year in prison, after which he lived with his parents and was forced to wear an electronic bracelet.
The church where the attacks took place was on "
hit list" found on an alleged ISIS terrorist who was arrested last year (Sid Ahmed Ghlam, arrested in 2015 after shooting himself in the leg, charged with murdering a mother of one, and suspected to have been in contact with a French speaker in Syria who directed him to carry out attacks on churches).
Update 2The attackers
reportedly filmed themselves murdering Jacques Hamel, then performed a "sermon" at the altar, according to a nun who was held hostage and witnessed the killing. The attacker mentioned in the update above was a 19-year-old, Adel K, who killed Hamel while his accomplice filmed it. Both he and his accomplice were on France's terrorist watchlist. The third man arrested, 17-year-old HB, is believed to be a relative of Adel.
Update 3The killer has been identified as
Adel Keramiche, known to French police and intelligence, and who had travelled to Syria numerous times. The other attacker's identity remains unknown. An anonymous source told
Le Figaro that Keramiche had told them, "I'll commit an attack on a church." One of the two was found to be carrying "an explosive belt made of aluminum foil and three knives", the other "a weapon made of aluminum and a backpack containing a fake explosive device".
Kermiche tried to reach Syria twice in 2015, first attempting to pass under the radar of authorities in March of last year, according to Molin. However, he was arrested in Germany after trying to use his brother's ID. Kermiche was subsequently put under surveillance in France.
He left home nearly two months later and an international warrant was issued for his arrest. In May of 2015, Keramiche was arrested near Geneva after Turkish authorities expelled him for attempting to reach Syria. He was then transferred to Switzerland.
On May 22, 2015, Keramiche was handed over to French authorities and put on trial, which resulted in him being put under provisional surveillance and house arrest. He also had to report to a local police station once a week.
In March of 2016, the house arrest order was dropped, but Kermiche has been required to wear an electronic tag ever since.
Update 4A video has emerged of the two attackers. They make clear their allegiance to Daesh and their plan to carry out an attack. (See
here, which includes extra details about the attackers.) Now it comes out that, despite knowing that Kermiche was a terrorist (he was awaiting trial at the time of the attack), French police had been
tipped off about the attack days before it occurred. The tip was about the second attacker, now identified as Abdel Malik Nabil Petijean, who had been on a terrorist watchlist since June. Like Kermiche, he had
tried to travel to Syria (he was spotted taking a flight on June 10, but
returned the next day for unknown reasons).
Before the attack, police had been searching for Petitjean for several days, and allegedly had information that he was preparing an attack, French media reported, citing sources close to investigation.
Petitjean's photo was distributed to the police four days prior to Tuesday's hostage-taking and killing, and the caption to the picture read that he "could be ready to participate in an attack on national territory."
Due to the contained nature of the attack, and the survival of key witnesses, there's no indication of outside support (like the muscular white guys observed shooting people during the Paris attacks). Of course, that doesn't mean that certain authorities knew about it and "let it happen on purpose". However, even if there are some in the French security establishment who profit by attacks like these (and either set them up or allow them to happen), it's also possible that this one was a result of a failure on the part of police who really did want to stop such an attack from occurring.
Kermiche was reportedly a friend of Maxime Hauchard, a French jihadi who has appeared in ISIS videos in Syria. (More details and pictures at
Daily Mail.)
Comment: Terror attacks, real or facsimiles, make the rounds these days to stir the pot; keep Europe on the edge and politicians in line.