A man who claimed allegiance to the self-styled Islamic State terrorist group stabbed a senior French police officer to death on Monday night before he was killed in a dramatic police operation, officials have said.
The attacker repeatedly stabbed the officer before taking his partner and their son hostage in their home in Magnanville, near Paris.
He was shot dead by members of an elite police unit after negotiations failed. The partner was found dead but the child was rescued, AFP reported.
Sources close to the investigation named the suspect as 25-year-old Larossi Abballa, adding that he had been sentenced in 2013 for links to a militant network that sent recruits to Pakistan.
French President Hollande said the 42-year-old policeman, named Jean-Baptiste S, and his 36-year-old partner, Jessica S, were “murdered in cowardly fashion”.
“It’s unquestionably a terrorist act,” Hollande said, stressing that France was still “facing a very significant terrorist threat”.
A news agency linked to the IS group said the attack had been carried out by an “Islamic State fighter”, days after posting a similar claim following the massacre at a club in Orlando, Florida.
French prosecutors have launched an anti-terror probe. The slain policeman worked in nearby Les Mureaux. His partner was also a local police official.
Loud detonations were heard at the scene as elite RAID police moved in following failed negotiations with the attacker, who claimed allegiance to IS while talking to officers, sources close to the inquiry told AFP.
”The anti-terror department of the Paris prosecution service is taking into account at this stage the mode of operation, the target and the comments made during negotiations with the RAID,” one source said.
The SITE Intelligence Group, a US-based monitor, cited the IS-linked Amaq News Agency as saying on its Telegram channels: “Islamic State fighter kills deputy chief of the police station in the city of Les Mureaux and his wife with blade weapons near Paris.”
Hollande Emergency Meeting
The killing came after a gunman claiming to be acting in the name of IS shot dead 49 people at a nightclub in Orlando, Florida, on Sunday in the worst mass shooting in US history. The bloodshed also comes as France hosts the Euro 2016 football tournament under tight security.
Hollande said in a statement that he “strongly condemned this odious act”.
”A police commander and his partner, a civil servant at the interior ministry, were shamefully murdered this evening,” Hollande said. ”All light will be shed on the circumstances of this terrible tragedy.”
The French president was due to hold an emergency Cabinet meeting over the killings at 7:45 am local time (0545 GMT), underscoring the seriousness with which the Elysee presidential palace is treating the incident.
This is the first militant strike on French soil since the government imposed a state of emergency after the multiple attacks on Paris in November that killed 130 people.
“Infinite Sadness”
Interior Ministry spokesman Pierre-Henry Brandet said officers found the woman’s body when they stormed the house and the attacker was killed during the assault.
The couple’s toddler son was “in shock but unharmed,” a prosecutor added, saying the boy was receiving medical attention.
Police sources had told AFP earlier in the evening that the attacker had taken the policeman’s partner and son hostage after stabbing the officer to death as he returned home around 9:00 pm local time.
Residents were quickly evacuated from the neighborhood as police moved in and blocked off roads, an AFP journalist said.
RAID officers “arrived rapidly on the scene. Negotiations were launched and an assault plan was put in place,” said Brandet.
But the negotiations were “unsuccessful” and authorities decided to launch an assault around midnight, he added.
A helicopter was on the ground a few hundred meters away from the scene of the attack, while several fire trucks and ambulances were seen leaving the security perimeter.
Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve expressed his “infinite sadness” at the death of the policeman and his partner, but praised the “great composure and great professionalism” of the elite officers.
