| Wall Street Journal | - |
Two
men claiming allegiance to Islamic State killed a priest and gravely
injured another person Tuesday during morning Mass at a church in a
northern French town, authorities said, the latest in a string of
attacks that have shocked Western Europe over ...
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Priest Dead, Two Attackers Killed After Assault on Church in Normandy, France
Islamic State claims responsibility for assault, latest in a string to hit Western Europe
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Police in France have shot dead
two attackers who took hostages in a church near the city of Rouen. Mark
Kelly reports. Image: AP
Islamic State said via its media arm, the Amaq news agency, that the attack was carried out by two of its “soldiers.” French President François Hollande said the attackers had sworn allegiance to the extremist group.
The men, wielding knives, entered the church in the small town of Saint Etienne du Rouvray in Normandy and took five hostages, including the priest, an octogenarian who was found with his throat cut, police said. Another person was left “between life and death,” a spokesman for the Interior Ministry said.
A spokesman for the French Bishops Conference identified the priest as Jacques Hamel, the parish’s auxiliary priest.
Police surrounded the church and shot the two men as they exited the building, said a spokesman for the Interior Ministry.
Days later, an Islamist radical injured several people in an ax attack on a German train, followed by Friday’s shooting spree by a disgruntled teenager in Munich. On Sunday, a Syrian asylum-seeker who authorities say pledged allegiance to Islamic State blew himself up in Germany.
Vatican spokesman Rev. Federico Lombardi branded the attack in Normandy a “barbarous killing” that “unfortunately has been added to the series of violence in recent days that has upset us.”
Pope Francis “is informed and shares the pain and horror of this absurd violence,” Father Lombardi said.
Mr. Hollande and Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve were on their way to the town, government officials said.
It isn’t the first time a church has been targeted in France. In April of last year, French police detained Sid Ahmed Ghlam, an Algerian suspected of having links with Islamic State and receiving instructions to attack a church.
The French government has strengthened security services since attacks in January and November last year and handed police special powers to conduct raids and detain suspects in their homes under a state of emergency, but has been unable to stop terrorist attacks. French Prime Minister Manuel Valls has warned that the country will have to live with the threat.
Opposition lawmakers have been quick to criticize the government’s efforts. In the moments after the attack at the church, Georges Fenech, an opposition lawmaker who headed a committee working on a report about intelligence services, said the government must now look at how to overhaul services.
“We must see how we can restructure our intelligence services to avoid [..] holes in our racket and these people being able to escape our radars,” Mr. Fenech said on French television.
In its statement, Islamic State said the Normandy attack was in response to U.S.-led coalition attacks in its self-declared caliphate in Syria and Iraq.
Islamic State spokesman Abu Mohammed al-Adnani appealed in May for Western followers who are unable to migrate to the group’s battlefields in the Mideast to instead launch attacks at home.
—Noam Raydan in Beirut contributed to this article.
Write to Noemie Bisserbe at noemie.bisserbe@wsj.com and Inti Landauro at inti.landauro@wsj.com 
