‘I am prepared to take lives’: Dutch Imam sparks outrage by saying he is ready to kill and die for Islam Turkish Imam Halil Celik works at Mosque in Dieren, eastern Netherlands He told a journalist: ‘I am prepared to die for my religion and also take lives’ Journalist Mehmet Cerit said ‘it is a shocking and outrageous statement’ Selimiye Mosque says that the statement is ‘unworthy of an Imam’
By Charlie Moore For Mailonline
Published: 04:26 EST, 25 July 2016 | Updated: 11:25 EST, 25 July 2016
An Imam has caused uproar in the Netherlands after saying he was willing to die for his religion and to kill others.
Turkish Imam Halil Celik told a journalist on Twitter: ‘I am prepared to die for my religion, but also prepared to take away lives.’
The message was addressed to Mehmet Cerit, editor-in-chief of the weekly Dutch-Turkish dailies Zaman Vandaag and Zaman Hollanda.
Turkish Imam Halil Celik has caused uproar in the Netherlands after telling a journalist he was prepared to die for his religion and to kill others
The journalist then made the claim public saying: ‘It is a shocking and outrageous statement. This Imam gives a bad example and it is people like him who are responsible for radicalising youth.’
Celik works at the Selimiye Mosque in the eastern Dutch town of Dieren. The mosque’s board has distanced itself from the statement of its Imam.
It said: ‘We do not agree with the statement made, it is unworthy of an Imam. I am sure the Turkish community in Dieren will feel the same.’
Imam Celik will leave the Selimiye Mosque this week and go back to Turkey.
The mosque’s board say his departure has nothing to do with his recent comments but had been planned for a while.
The board added that their Imam’s comments had been taken out of context, saying it was part of a dialogue with an opponent.
Turkish Imam Halil Celik told a journalist on Twitter: ‘I am prepared to die for my religion, but also prepared to take away lives’. His posts are in grey
The threatening statement might be linked to the situation in Turkey, which has seen a coup and subsequent massive crackdown by the Erdogan government who blamed the Fethullah Gulen movement for orchestrating the attempted military takeover.
The Zaman newspapers, which originally supported Erdogan’s AKP party, have been accused by the Turkish government of being aligned with the Gulen movement.
The Selimiye Mosque is state-operated by Diyanet, the Turkish Ministry of Religious Affairs, which usually sends Imams abroad to Turkish mosques in foreign countries.
Under President Erdogan, it has taken an increasingly conservative line and clashed on occasions with other Turkish groups and minorities.
Celik works at the Selimiye Mosque in the eastern Dutch town of Dieren. The mosque’s board has distanced itself from the statement of its Imam
The Democrat party — home to Jew-hatred and jihad. Every Jew who associates with these haters are a pox on our people.
And it’s not just this vicious black antisemite. Clinton’s VP pick Tim Kaine is pro-terror, anti-Israel, anti-Jewish. The whole DNC platform is viciously anti-semitic.
As for the term “settler,” I refuse to accept the lexicon of the antisemite. A “settler” is a Jew living in the Jewish homeland.
Congressman: Jewish Settlers Are Like Termites,” By Adam Kredo, WFB, July 25, 2016:
Congressman: Jewish Settlers Are Like Termites
Slams Israeli Government, compares top official to Trump
PHILADELPHIA—A Democratic member of the House Armed Services Committee compared Jewish Israeli settlers to termites on Monday while speaking at an event sponsored by an anti-Israel organization that supports boycotts of the Jewish state.
Rep. Hank Johnson (D., Ga.) launched into a tirade against Israel and its policies toward the Palestinians, comparing Jewish people who live in disputed territories to “termites” that destroy homes. Johnson also compared Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman to Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, a remark that drew vocal agreement from those in the room.
“There has been a steady [stream], almost like termites can get into a residence and eat before you know that you’ve been eaten up and you fall in on yourself, there has been settlement activity that has marched forward with impunity and at an ever increasing rate to the point where it has become alarming,” Johnson said during an event sponsored by the U.S. Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation, an anti-Israel organization that galvanizes supporters of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement, or BDS.
“It has come to the point that occupation, with highways that cut through Palestinian land, with walls that go up, with the inability or the restriction, with the illegality of Palestinians being able to travel on those roads and those roads cutting off Palestinian neighborhoods from each other,” Johnson continued. “And then with the building of walls and the building of check points that restrict movement of Palestinians. We’ve gotten to the point where the thought of a Palestinian homeland gets further and further removed from reality.”
Johnson, who in 2010 voiced his fears that Guam would tip over and capsize if too many people resided on the island, said that “Jewish people” routinely steal land and property from Palestinians.
“You see one home after another being appropriated by Jewish people who come in to claim that land just because somebody did not spend the night there,” he said, referring to claims that Israeli settlers plot to seize Palestinian land. ‘“The home their [Palestinian] ancestors lived in for generations becomes an Israeli home and a flag goes up,” he said, adding, “the Palestinians are barred from flying flags in their own neighborhoods.”
Johnson went on to compare Lieberman to Trump as he lashed out against the Israeli government.
“The fact is the Israeli government, which is the most right-wing government ever to exist in the state of Israel in its history, the most right wing government, you got a guy like Trump who is now the minister of defense in Israel calling the shots on defense,” he said, adding that he is not the only member of Congress who holds these views.
James Zogby, a member of the Democratic platform committee and president of the Arab American Institute, informed the crowd that efforts to make the Democratic platform more pro-Palestinian ran up against objections from those who are scared of casino magnate and Republican donor Sheldon Adelson.
“I had no idea the [platform] fight would be over ‘occupation’ and ‘settlements,’” Zogby said, referring to efforts by more mainstream elements of the Democratic Party to ensure the platform language remained staunchly pro-Israel.
“
“Something happens in this game where they [Democratic Party members] take their policy brain out and put it somewhere and they substitute their politics brain, which they think is a smart brain,” Zogby said, summarizing this thought process as: “We can’t do it because Sheldon Adelson will come out against us.”
“Jesus,” Zogby said, “he’s gonna come out against you no matter what!”
♦ President Obama has surrounded himself not with military strategists but rather with fiction writers, wide-eyed diplomats whose strategy is “don’t do stupid shit,” and law enforcement officials who believe that “Our most effective response to terror and hatred is compassion, unity and love.”
♦ Only “rightwing extremism” is obvious to the Obama Administration. Everything else is apparently too complex and nuanced for labels. Even Micah Xavier Johnson, who said that he was motivated by “Black Lives Matters” rhetoric and hatred of white people, is a conundrum to the president, who bizarrely asserted that it is “hard to untangle the motives of this shooter.”
♦ The Obama era is one of willful blindness to the jihadist movement that has declared war on America. CIA Director John Brennan purged the word “jihad” from the agency’s vocabulary. Obama’s two Attorneys General have done the same at the Department of Justice.
♦ The federal government has spent the last 8 years pretending that “rightwing extremists” are more numerous and dangerous than the careful and intelligent jihadist attackers, whom it insists are just “madmen” or “troubled individuals.”
Anyone surprised by President Barack Obama’s recurring attempts at exploiting jihadist attacks in his efforts to restrict gun ownership should read the earliest known document concerning terrorism assembled by his administration. The unclassified assessment by Department of Homeland Security (DHS), titled “Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment,” is dated April 7, 2009 — a mere 77 days after Obama’s inauguration.
The document was leaked shortly after its release to law enforcement officials across the country and made public by Roger Hedgecock on April 13, 2009. It laid out the new president’s legislative and executive priorities on terrorism, guns and immigration. Uniquely combining these three issues would become a predictable, coordinated pattern during Obama’s two terms in office.
The assessment boldly delineated the Tom Ridge and Janet Napolitano eras at the DHS. As Eli Lake wrote the day after the document was leaked, “Since its inception in 2003, the department has focused primarily on radicalization of Muslims and the prospect of homegrown Islamist terrorism.” Under Obama’s leadership, attention was directed away from Muslims and Islamist terrorism and redirected towards limiting the Second Amendment, scrutinizing military veterans and expanding both legal and illegal immigration.
Contrary to criticism of the Obama administration as uninterested in the plight of military veterans, the DHS assessment shows that vets were very much a priority. The document’s authors, in fact, were worried that “military veterans facing significant challenges returning into their communities could lead to the potential emergence of terrorist groups or lone wolf extremists.”
The only significant acts of domestic terrorism perpetrated by veterans lately have not been inspired from the right, however: Micah Xavier Johnson and Gavin Long are products of a “left wing,” anti-police, anti-establishment ideology. The assassinations they carried out fit the pattern of the so-called “New Left” wave of terror carried out in the 1970s by the Weather Underground and the Black Panthers.
The language of the document also foretells the Obama story. In its brief seven pages of text there are 25 references to gun control, weapons and ammunition-hoarding. Terrorists motivated by “anti-immigration” and “white supremacist” ideologies are mentioned 11 times, and veterans returning home from Afghanistan and Iraq are mentioned 9 times. Variations of “extremism,” which would become Obama’s preferred euphemism, occur 42 times.
Timothy McVeigh is the model terrorist in the document. DHS spokeswoman Sara Kuban said a goal of the report was “to prevent another Tim McVeigh from ever happening again.”
The 1990s figure prominently in the DHS prognostication, meriting 17 references. The “poor economic climate,” the Clinton “assault weapon” ban and “a perceived threat to US power and sovereignty by other foreign powers” are envisioned as parallel to the situation in 2009. Looking back at the 1990s and predicting similar troubles in the age of Obama, Napolitano’s DHS made no mention of the most significant development in the evolution of political violence to occur in the 1990s: the rise of Al-Qaeda.
Military strategists worth their pay will recognize the DHS version of “preparing to fight the last war,” but then Obama has surrounded himself not with military strategists but rather with fiction writers, wide-eyed diplomats whose strategy is limited to “don’t do stupid shit,” and law enforcement officials who believe that “Our most effective response to terror and hatred is compassion, unity and love.”
In a passage about “the historical election of an African American president and the prospect of policy changes,” there is a reference to “the shooting deaths of three police officers in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on 4 April 2009.” The shooter in question was Richard Poplawski, who ambushed the police called to his home to investigate a domestic disturbance. The DHS concludes that “his racist ideology and belief in antigovernment conspiracy theories” led to his “radicalization,” though years later, after Poplawski was convicted and sentenced to death, reporters and even the jury were still unsure of his motives.
The Poplawski shooting occurred just three days before the date on the document. Compare that remarkably speedy conclusion to the way the Obama Administration has handled jihadist attacks. Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan’s November 5, 2009 attack in Fort Hood, Texas, and Alton Nolan’s September 24, 2014 ritual beheading of a coworker at the Vaughan Foods plant in Moore, Oklahoma, are described as “workplace violence.”
FBI Director James Comey expressed confusion over Omar Mateen’s motives for the recent Orlando jihad attack, even though Mateen’s attack was accompanied by the jihadist’s battle cry “Allahu Akhbar” and a pledge of allegiance to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, Caliph of the Islamic State during a 911 call. Before that it was the San Bernardino husband-wife jihadist team whose motives were ostensibly a mystery to the FBI.
Only “rightwing extremism” is obvious to the Obama Administration. Everything else is apparently too complex and nuanced for labels. Even Micah Xavier Johnson, who told Dallas police that he was motivated by “Black Lives Matters” rhetoric and hatred of white people, is a conundrum to the president, who bizarrely asserted that it is “hard to untangle the motives of this shooter.”
Left: The 2009 Department of Homeland Security assessment titled “Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment.” Right: Micah Xavier Johnson, who murdered five Dallas police officers and injured nine others, said that he was motivated by “Black Lives Matters” rhetoric and hatred of white people.
After the 2009 DHS assessment was widely and rightly criticized, the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) complained that the administration “let its team devoted to non-Islamic domestic terrorism fall apart in the aftermath of… [the] controversial leaked report.” But while the “Extremism and Radicalization Branch, Homeland Environment Threat Analysis Division” may have been dropped, but the principles that led to the document were not.
Even more so than the Bush era, the Obama era is one of willful blindness to the global jihadist movement that has declared war on America. CIA Director John Brennan purged the word “jihad” from the agency’s vocabulary. Obama’s two Attorneys General have done the same at the Department of Justice.
The federal government has spent the last eight years pretending (maybe even believing) that “rightwing extremists” are more numerous and dangerous than the careful and intelligent jihadist attackers, whom it insists are just “madmen” or “troubled individuals.”
If you said Baltimore mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, you understand the modern Democratic party very well. Rawlings-Blake formally opened the proceedings in place of the deposed Debbie Wasserman-Schultz.
Readers will recall that, as rioting commenced in Baltimore, Rawlings-Blake stated:
It’s a very delicate balancing act because while we try to make sure that they were protected from the cars and the other things that were going on, we also gave those who wished to destroy space to do that as well, and we work very hard to keep that balance and to put ourselves in the best position to de-escalate.
(Emphasis added)
Later on, when rioting ran rampant, Rawlings-Blake had the police stand down.
Under Rawlings-Blake, the Baltimore police force has become hugely demoralized. The force is shrinking and the murder rate is soaring.
If the Democratic Party wanted to make this election all about who is on the criminals’ side and who is on the law-abiding people’s side, with themselves being the wrong side, it could hardly have chosen a more effective face to put forward to open its convention.
We know that Donald Trump wants to make the election in significant part about who is on the criminals’ side. During his acceptance speech, Trump declared himself “the law and order candidate.”
(Of course there was no mention of Islamic terrorism. Hillary plans to bring lots more “Syrian refugees” to America. — DM)
Forget the emails. Forget the angry Bernie followers and the various pathetic internecine betrayals. The real story from day one at the Democratic Convention is that in sixty-one speeches never once did these so-called “liberals” mention terrorism.
The next morning, in fact almost simultaneously, if you take into account the the time zones, an 84-year old priest in Rouen was having his throat cut by ISIS maniacs during morning mass. The Islamic terrorists had him kneel, filming his death as they did their evil work. Nuns were held hostage.
Horrifying as it is, it wasn’t really surprising.. Such happenings have been going on with increased regularity in Germany and France (not to mention Orlando).
Yet the Democrats chose to ignore. Why?
The answer is simple: it doesn’t play well for them. They’re scared it plays better for the Republicans and Donald Trump. So they don’t mention it.
Also, it doesn’t fit with their morally narcissistic narrative that all religions are equal.
Talk about morally sick – that idea is truly that. In fact, its absurd. It is also cowardly.
Media and politicians go on with regularity calling the terrorists cowardly. They are not the cowards. The Islamist terrorists are quite willing to give up their lives for their own deranged religious cause. It is the media and politicians that are the real cowards in their inability to confront them.
Obama – and now Hillary’s – Democratic Party does their best to look the other way and pretend it’s not there. Obama is so deranged himself he continues to downplay terrorism and say climate change is the real problem. When you think about that objectively, it sounds almost insane, yet the press swallows it. Yesterday, John Kerry said air conditioning was the problem.
The idea that more refugees from Syria are being allowed into this country by Obama and Hillary boggles the mind. Do these politicians want to kill us and our families. Don’t that have children themselves? Oh, yes, they have security personnel of their own. But 99.9% of their constituents don’t.
And yet the citizens of the USA elect these people. Enough. Wake up, America.
(No problem. At least one flag — Palestinian — was flown proudly. — DM)
The Daily Caller is at the Democratic National Convention and it doesn’t look like there are any American flags.
The stage is bland and grey, with no red, white or blue present. A thorough look at the crowd present also turns up no American flags.
PHILADELPHIA, PA – JULY 25: Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) delivers remarks on the first day of the Democratic National Convention at the Wells Fargo Center, July 25, 2016 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. An estimated 50,000 people are expected in Philadelphia, including hundreds of protesters and members of the media. The four-day Democratic National Convention kicked off July 25. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)
US Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks on the last day of the Republican National Convention on July 21, 2016, in Cleveland, Ohio. / AFP / JIM WATSON (Photo credit should read JIM WATSON/AFP/Getty Images)
Near Philadelphia’s City Hall, an obese woman wearing a marijuana leaf bikini was telling a television reporter why she supported Bernie Sanders. City Hall, once the tallest building in the world, is a gloriously magnificent edifice whose pillars are held up by representatives of all the races of the world and whose clock tower is topped by a 37-foot statue of William Penn, was besieged by Sandernistas.
The Democratic convention was underway. Bernie Sanders had endorsed Hillary Clinton. But his followers still believed. If not in Bernie, then in the radical movement that had coalesced around him.
A cheerful woman wearing a “Bernie or Bust” t-shirt told me that even if Bernie won, she would be voting for Jill Stein and the Green Party. It was unclear how Bernie Sanders could possibly win. Let alone how Jill Stein could win. But Bernie and Jill were against drones, banks and GMOs while Hillary Clinton was for them. And the mood grew uglier as the temperature approached one hundred degrees.
The crazier elements had converged around the historic Arch Street United Methodist Church which was “training” activists to protest non-violently. There were illegal aliens in green t-shirts laughing uproariously and scowling elderly Trotsky fan club members wearing BDS buttons surrounded by posters denouncing America for its “ongoing war” in Iraq (against ISIS) not to mention Syria, Yemen, Somalia, Pakistan and most of the rest of the world. The Revolutionary Communist party marched angrily past.
There were also “Bernie Peacekeepers” wearing plastic placards proclaiming that they do not support violence of any kind. If anyone doubted their seriousness, the placards had a rainbow peace sign.
But the core Bernie elements had gathered around City Hall. They had marched the day before when there was no convention. And they were going to march today. A giant banner denounced the “racist drug war”. The ragged crowd carrying it had clearly found themselves on the wrong end of that war. Younger fans wore Bernie t-shirts. Entire families with dreadlocks held up handmade signs.
There was something millenarian and apocalyptic about the scene. Everyone knew that Bernie was going to announce that the revolution was over. And no one wanted to go home.
Officially the Democrats were here to coronate Hillary. MSNBC had set up a giant stage outside the Independence Visitor Center where tickets were being distributed to Independence Hall and its recreations of the rooms where the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution were signed. MSNBC personalities leered at viewers from giant video monitors and NBC staffers had swamped the Independence Hall bathrooms. But on the ground, it was all Bernie, Bernie and more Bernie.
There were no Hillary shirts in the streets. It was all Bernie. Silhouettes of Bernie’s glasses, Bernie and his bird, Bernie as a strapping young socialist and Bernie speaking to the masses. He was their Stalin or Saddam. His image was on shirts, signs and banners. Meanwhile elderly DNC delegates wearing blue lanyards nervously shuttled between bars eagerly catering to delegates. The painted donkeys in the squares, a tired gimmick, mostly went ignored. Even an “I’m With Her” button was a rarity.
In a hushed voice, a DNC delegate told me that it was important to elect someone in the middle. But the message in the streets was dramatically different. It wasn’t even about Bernie anymore. Bernie Sanders had tried to address his supporters asking them to behave and they had booed him. And that made the booing of Hillary’s name at the convention inevitable. Bernie the politician had sold out. But the radical left had already created Bernie the character who would go on fighting even when the politician wouldn’t. Bernie could start the revolution. But he couldn’t stop it. Because it was never about him.
The most extreme Sandernistas had converged on Philly certain that they would win. And for all of Hillary’s elaborate organization, her networks of influential cronies, she couldn’t stop them from ruining her coronation. The DNC was on the run. Debbie Wasserman Schultz had resigned. And DNC delegates were outnumbered by angry radical leftists waving signs denouncing capitalism.
The radical left was trying to devour the Democratic Party ahead of schedule. And it wasn’t a pleasant sight. Sandernistas crowded the 30th Street Train Station holding forth on a rigged election. They had arrived on stuffy Amtrak trains clutching wadded up cardboard signs. There were angry grad students down from Yale upset about income inequality and anti-war activists from New York City toting models of drones and photos of crying children. Meanwhile the temperature kept on climbing.
Philly was an oven. The locals apologized for the weather as if they had somehow caused it. But the sullen unforgiving heat seemed to echo the mood of Sanders supporters. The hotter it got, the louder and crazier the chants became. At the heart of what was supposed to be a celebration of Hillary, a passionate portion of her party’s base was demanding that she be sent to jail. It was a secret wish that Bernie Sanders had been forced to swallow and abandon, but his supporters had not forgotten.
And they would not forget.
Even before Bernie Sanders could sell out his followers at the DNC, the rising tension reached a crescendo and broke. The heat that had been growing all day could continue no more. Torrents of rain gushed down from the sky. Lightning flashed past skyscraper scaffolding and thunder boomed louder than the loudspeakers. Furious gusts of wind blew rain past a handful of umbrellas that had been used as parasols against the sun. The MSNBC stage was quickly deserted. And the Sandernistas, like drowned rats, raised up their cardboard signs as makeshift umbrellas against the rain.
Hours later, the final betrayal took hold. Bernie Sanders spoke at the DNC and sold out his loyalists. But they too had been preparing for the end.
More than one Sandernista spoke wistfully to me of Jill Stein and the Green Party. One leftist messiah had failed them. Bernie Sanders had put the Democratic Party ahead of the radical left’s agenda. But there were always uncompromising leftist radicals who would never be practical no matter what.
Sanders’ own supporters booed him. They booed any mention of Hillary. And they rode Amtrak home clutching wet signs calling for socialized medicine and an end to capitalism. Whether it is the Soviet Union or the Sanders Union, the left never recognizes that its revolutions have failed. It never learns anything from history except how to hate harder.
The Democratic Party had allowed the left to take over. And the left has no sensible stopping point. It is an endless cycle of revolutions, of mad political agendas and madder personalities that will not stop. Leftists like Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders unleash revolutions that they cannot control.
That is what always happens to the left. It is what happened at Berniegeddon in Philadelphia.
The Bernie dream is dead, but the dream of a totalitarian revolution of the left lives on. Next to the great historical monuments of America, the Liberty Bell and Independence Hall, Benjamin Franklin’s grave and the Tomb of the Unknown Revolutionary War Soldier, the left vented its hatred for this country and its desire to erase its existence and its freedoms from the earth.
The terrorist was only allowed out unsupervised between 8.30am and 12.30pm. Today’s attack took place between 9.45am and 11am
One of the Normandy church murderers was a convicted terrorist who was meant to be living with his parents with an electronic tag on his ankle, according to security sources.
The astonishing revelation – made to the French TV news channel I-Tele – well cause further outrage in a country devastated by constant security failings.
Two attackers were shot dead by police commandos during the siege at Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray this morning, and their identities are already known to the authorities.
One, who lived close to the church, is said to have left for Syria in 2015 to try and join Islamic State, but he was arrested in Turkey.
He was jailed for terrorist offences following a short trial in France, before being released on March 2nd this year.
Police shot dead two hostage-takers at the scene
Sky News
Paramedics were seen taking individuals away on stretchers
Bail conditions included returning to live with his parents, wearing an electronic tag, and reporting to his local police station.
According to his bail conditions, the electronically tagged terrorist was allowed out unsupervised between 8.30am and 12.30pm.
Today’s attack took place between 9.45am and 11am.
Sky News
Paramedics were seen loading stretchers into the back of an ambulance
But this did not stop him becoming involved in today’s atrocity, in which Father Jacques Hamel, 86, had his throat cut.
Neither of the Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray attackers have yet been named.
French security services have been regularly criticised for the way they allow known terrorists their freedom after being found guilty of crimes.
The church where a priest was killed after having his throat cut by two knife-wielding hostage-takers was on the ‘kill list’ of a suspected ISIS terrorist arrested last year.
The two attackers entered the Church of the Gambetta at around 9.45am local time (8.45am UK time) during morning prayers and took a priest, two nuns and two worshippers hostage.
Parish priest Jacques Hamel was killed and a worshipper is fighting for life after being attacked before police shot the two knifemen dead.
It has since emerged Sid Ahmed Ghlam, 24, – who was arrested in Paris last April – had the name of the church in a series of documents believed to be related to the planning of terror attacks.
Investigators believe he was a terrorist planning ‘imminent attacks’ in France on the instructions of ISIS leaders.
Documents found at his flat and in a search of his computer and telephone, suggested Ghlam was in contact with a French speaker in Syria who had ordered him to carry out attacks on churches.
These included the Sacre-Couer basilica in Paris, and places of worship including the one in Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray targeted today.
The two attackers entered the Church of the Gambetta at around 9.45am local time (8.45am UK time) during morning prayers.
Abbe Jacques Hamel has been named as the priest killed in the attack
They took the priest, two nuns and two worshippers hostage and local media reports suggest the knifemen shouted “Allahu Akbar” as they launched the attack.
It has since emerged the church was on a ‘kill list’ of a suspected ISIS terrorist arrested in Paris last April for allegedly plotting “imminent attacks” in France.
French president Francois Hollande named ISIS in a speech confirming the incident as a terrorist attack while re-iterating the country is “at war”.
He said: “We are facing a group – Daesh – who have declared war and we have to fight this war using all means possible.
REUTERS
The area has been placed on lockdown as sniffer dogs search the areaFrench president Francois Hollande spoke at the scene this afternoon
“What these terrorists wants to do is to divide us.”
A third nun is said to have escaped the siege, in Rouen, Normandy, and raised the alarm.
The hour-long armed stand-off was ended when the hostage-takers were shot dead.
Getty Images
French police remain at the scene
Getty Images
The investigation has been handed over to anti-terror officials
Getty Images
The armed stand-off last around one hour
Police found the body of the priest – named locally as 84-year-old Jacques Hamel – inside the church.
Mourners have paid tribute to the elderly priest, posting pictures of him on Twitter wearing his Catholic robes.
The Vatican has described the attack as a “barbarous killing” made even worse as it was carried out in a “sacred place”.
One of the worshippers is said to be “between life and death” as they fight for their life in hospital after suffering serious injuries.
The incident is being treated as a suspect terror attack and the anti-terror of the French prosecutor’s office have now launched an investigation into the attack.
France’s Interior Ministry confirmed the priest and two hostage-takers had died at the scene.
Prise d’otages dans une église de Saint Etienne du Rouvray ! Police GIPN et militaires mission vigipirate sur place pic.twitter.com/Wz1zbwHK5F
A local police source said the men stormed a back entrance of the church before taking the hostages.
Interior Ministry Spokesman Pierre-Henry Brandet told a press-conference at the scene that sniffer dogs are searching the area for potential booby traps.
He said: “We face a dramatic situation that we have to face up to once again, less than two weeks following the Nice tragedy.
Google
The knifemen are said to have entered the back of the church
Getty Images
French Interior Ministry spokesman Pierre-Henry Brandet speaks at the scene
“The investigation will continue throughout the day. We are at the start of the operation. The priority was to make sure we got the assailants and rescued as many hostages as possible.
“Unfortunately the toll has been extremely high. One person was assassinated and another was seriously injured.”
Horreur face à l’attaque barbare d’une église de Seine-Maritime. La France entière et tous les catholiques sont meurtris. Nous ferons bloc.
French prime minister Manuel Valls said in a message on Twitter: “Horror in the face of the barbaric attack on a church in Seine-Maritime. All of France and all Catholics are bruised. We stand together.”
In a message on Twitter, the Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby said: “Evil attacks the weakest, denies truth and love, is defeated through Jesus Christ. Pray for France, for victims, for their communities.”
Google
The hostages were taken at the Church of the Gambetta in Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray
One 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.
He told French newspaper MetroNews: “I was going to go out and do my shopping when the police started shouting me to go straight home and barricade myself.
“There is a lot of agitation, the police are bulletproof vest and armed.”
Two men stormed a northern French church, killing a priest and seriously wounding another person, before they were shot dead by police, in what authorities said they are treating as a terrorist attack. The men took five hostages, including the priest, in the church in the small town of Saint Etienne du Rouvray in Normandy. The priest was later found with his throat cut, police said. Police surrounded the church and shot the two men as they exited the building, an Interior Ministry spokesman said. France’s President François Hollande and Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve are on their way to the town, said government officials. The assault is being treated as a terror attack by investigators, Paris prosecutors said in a statement. A Vatican spokesman said that Pope Francis shares the “pain and horror” of the attack, which he called a “barbarous” act in a sacred place.
Summary:
Two knifemen took several hostages during mass
They killed the 84-year-old priest, Jacques Hamel, with unconfirmed reports saying his throat was cut; they were then shot dead by police
Three churchgoers were also injured, one of them seriously
President François Hollande is heading to scene; Counter terror judges have been called in to investigate
Police searching church for explosives
In the latest European assault to take place just over the past hour, two knifemen raided the Church of the Gambetta in the northern French town of Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray, near Rouen in the département of Seine-Maritime (see map below) at 10am on Tuesday, taking between 4 and 6 hostages and allegedly killing a priest before being killed by police. According to subsequent unconfirmed reports the priest had been beheaded.
Another worshipper is said to have been seriously wounded.
Both attackers have been killed by police, an interior ministry spokesman confirmed to Reuters. The Paris anti-terrorist prosecutor is launching an investigation into the church attack and hostage-taking situation, the spokesman added
Subsequent reports suggest that one of the suspects tried to travel to Syria last year.
The killed priest has been identified as 84 year old Jacques Hamel.
One resident was walking to church as the horror broke out. He told French newspaper MetroNews: “I was going to go out and do my shopping when the police started shouting me to go straight home and barricade myself.
“There is a lot of agitation, the police are bulletproof vest and armed.”
While the motives of the hostage taking are still unclear it comes at a time when France is on high alert after a spate of recent terror attacks.
Firefighters, along with SWAT and anti-terror units, came to the scene, and said that there were several people wounded in the attack, RTL France media outlet said.
The Vatican has condemned the “barbaric killing” of the priest in the attack, saying it was made even more heinous by the fact that it happened in a sacred place.
French President Francois Hollande is on his way to the site of the attack, according to an official statement from Elysee Palace. Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve is also headed to the scene of the hostage-taking, the ministry said.
anneinpt
artaxes
danmillerinpanama
davidking1530
Peter Hofman
Joseph Wouk
Peter
Louisiana Steve
WarSclerotic 
Recent Comments