UPDATE 23:21 PM: TRUNEWS spoke with a childhood friend of Adel Kermich, who asked not to be named. When asked if there were many Muslim immigrants in Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray, LB responded that she believed the church attack had “nothing to do with the religion of Kermich” and that the French government was actually at fault for not keeping better control of him after they identified him previously as a terrorist.

UPDATE 21:28 PM: One of the church attackers was wearing an explosive belt, the other was carrying a backpack with a fake device, according to a French prosecutor overseeing Normandy.

The French prosecutor also confirmed that the men shouted “Allah Akbar”, “God is great”, as they left the church.

UPDATE 20:45 PM: French 19-year-old Adel Kermich has been named as one of the killers, and was the attacker who committed the beheading of Father Jacques Hamel.

French authorities have confirmed he was being monitored by an electronic tag after being jailed for twice attempting to join ISIS in Syria, according to the Daily Mail.

Mohammed Karabila, president of the Regional Council of the Muslim Faith for Haute-Normandie and head of the local Muslim cultural centre, said:

“the person that did this odious act is known, and he has been followed by the police for at least a year and a half.”

After Kermich was released from jail early, the terms of his bail allowed him to be unsupervised between the hours of 08:30 AM and 12:30 PM. The attack happened between 09:45 AM and 11:00 AM.

Kermich is understood to be the attacker who forced Father Jacques Hamel to kneel while his accomplice, who also lived locally and was on a terrorist watchlist, filmed the muslim decapitation ritual, according to the Daily Mail.

A third man, a 17-year-old known only as HB and believed to be a relative of Kermich, was arrested at his home in Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray following the attack.

The trio took a total of five people hostage, 2 worshippers, 2 nuns, and Father Jacques Hamel, according to the Mirror.

UPDATE 17:10 PM: Sister Danielle, a nun who was in the church during the attack, told BFM television that Father Jacques Hamel was forced to the ground by the terrorists, who recorded themselves conducting an arabic sermon at the alter before slitting his throat.

Sister Danielle said:

“They forced him to his knees. He wanted to defend himself. And that’s when the tragedy happened. They recorded themselves. They did a sort of sermon around the altar, in Arabic. It’s a horror,” she told BFM television.

Of her fallen colleague, she said: “He was a great priest.”

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UPDATE: ISIS has claimed through their Amaq news agency that the church attackers were “two soldiers of the Islamic State”.

The beheaded priest has been named as Father Jacques Hamel, 84, the assistant head priest of Saint Etienne du Rouvray Church, located in the French town of Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray, near Rouen, Normandy.

French President Francois Hollande confirmed that the attackers had claimed allegiance to ISIS in speech on from Rouen.

The Daily Sun is reporting that the church was on a terrorist ‘hit list’ which French police have known about since April 2015, andYnet reports one of the knifemen tried to travel to Syria in 2015.

After beginning the raid on the Catholic mass at 9am, and holding hostages for approximately 40 minutes, the two ‘bearded’ attackers were shot and killed by police after emerging from the church shouting ‘Daesh’, another name for ISIS.

A third suspect has reportedly been arrested outside the church.

One of the attackers was a convicted ‘electronic tag wearing’ terrorist living with his parent, according to security sources.

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Two attackers killed a priest with a blade and seriously wounded another hostage in a church in northern France on Tuesday before being shot dead by French police.

There were no immediate details on the identity or motives of the two assailants but the investigation was handed to the anti-terrorist unit of the Paris prosecutor’s office.

A police source said it appeared that the priest had his throat slit attempting to behead. The Vatican condemned what it said was a “barbarous killing”.

“At one point, the two assailants came out of the church and that’s when they were killed by the BRI elite force,” Interior Ministry spokesman Pierre-Henry Brandet told France Info radio, referring to France’s specialized police group.

Prime Minister Manuel Valls branded the attack “barbaric” and said it was a blow to all Catholics and the whole of France.

“We will stand together,” Valls said on Twitter.

The attack is the latest in a string of deadly assaults in Europe.

In France, the Normandy attack comes 12 days after a 31-year-old Tunisian Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel plowed his heavy goods truck into a crowd of revelers in the French Riviera city of Nice, killing 84 people. Islamic State claimed that attack.

The knifemen launched their assault by taking five people hostage inside the church in the Normandy town of Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray, south of Rouen.

Interior Ministry spokesman Brandet confirmed one of the hostages had been killed and said another was critical.

French President Francois Hollande was on his way to the site of the attack.

“Horror. Everything is being done to trigger a war of religions,” tweeted Jean-Pierre Raffarin, a former conservative prime minister who now heads the Senate’s foreign affairs committee.

(By Marine Pennetier and Chine Labbé PARIS (Reuters) – Additional reporting by Michel Rose; Writing by Richard Lough; Editing by Michel Rose/Jeremy Gaunt)

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Article by Doc Burkhart, Vice-President, General Manager and co-host of TRUNEWS with Rick Wiles.

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