Hostage, 86, shares chilling details
PARIS — More horrifying details emerged Wednesday about an attack on a French village church even as the country’s main religious leaders sent a message of unity and solidarity after meeting with President Francois Hollande in Paris.
Two attackers took five hostages Tuesday at the church in Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray in northwest France and slit the throat of the elderly priest saying morning Mass. A nun at the Mass slipped out to raise the alarm and both attackers, one of them a local man, were then killed by police outside the church.
Emotions in France that were raw after a July 14 truck attack in Nice that killed 84 people became more frazzled after the church in Normandy was attacked. Both deadly attacks were claimed by the Islamic State group.
On Wednesday, the IS-affiliated Amaq news agency released a video allegedly showing the church attackers sitting on a floor, clasping hands and pledging allegiance to the group.
“The terrorists held me with a revolver at my neck. [The priest] fell down looking upwards, toward us.”
– JEANINE, 86-YEAR-OLD SAINT-ETIENNE-DU-ROUVRAY HOSTAGE
The speaker in the video identified himself by the jihadi nom de guerre Abul Jaleel al-Hanafi, and said his compatriot is called Ibn Omar. French prosecutors have previously identified the former as Adel Kermiche, a 19-year-old who grew up in the town and tried to travel to Syria twice last year using family members’ identity documents.
Wearing a camo jacket and speaking in broken Arabic, Kermiche recited: “We pledge allegiance and obedience to Emir of the faithful Abu Bakr al-Baghdady in hardship and in ease.”
With the attack threat for France ranked extremely high, Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said France is working to protect 56 remaining summer events and may consider canceling some. Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said 4,000 members of the Sentinel military force will patrol Paris, while 6,000 will patrol in the provinces. They are being bolstered by tens of thousands of police and reservists.
One of the hostages at the church, an 86-year-old woman, said Wednesday the attackers had handed her husband Guy a cellphone and demanded he take photos or video of the priest — 85-year-old Rev. Jacques Hamel — after he was slain. Her husband was then slashed in four places by the attackers and is now hospitalized with serious injuries.
The woman, identified only as Jeanine, told RMC radio her husband played dead to stay alive. Two nuns were held hostage along with the couple and the priest.
“The terrorists held me with a revolver at my neck,” she said, adding it was not clear to her now whether the weapon was real or fake. “[The priest] fell down looking upwards, toward us.”
The Paris prosecutor, Francois Molins, said the two attackers had knives and fake explosives — one a phony suicide belt covered in foil.