Friday, 26 June 2015

Published 05:00 by with 0 comment

France on alert after terrorists storm factory, behead man

France was on high alert after a worker at a U.S.-based chemical company was beheaded by terrorists bearing ISIS flags early Friday, authorities said.
The attack occurred at approximately 9:50 a.m. local time in Saint-Quentin-Fallavier, northwest of the Alpine city of Grenoble, according to Le Dauphine newspaper. The newspaper reported that two men dressed as deliverymen arrived at the plant, and that one walked into the main office, declared he was a member of ISIS and beheaded someone there. The terrorists reportedly left the severed head hanging from a fence, and set off several gas canisters at the plant.
"The attack was of a terrorist nature since a body was discovered, decapitated and with inscriptions," French President Francois Hollande told a news conference in Brussels, where he was attending an EU summit.
The factory is operated by Air Products & Chemicals, an Allentown, Pa.,-based company that makes industrial gases.
A local official confirmed the nation is on high alert.
"The terrorism threat is at a maximum," Alain Juppe, mayor of Bordeaux, told Fox News.
One man, who authorities said was an extremist known to authorities was under arrest following the attack. There were unconfirmed reports the other was killed.
The attack came months after well-known ISIS social media accounts and propaganda video threatened attacks in the U.S., Belgium and France.
"We advise you that we will come to you with car bombs and explosive charges and we will cut off you heads," stated one such threat that mirrored Friday morning's attack.
Sky News, citing French legal sources, reported that the severed head had Arabic writing scrawled across it and was placed on a fence next to an Islamist flag.
French authorities tell Fox News that approximately 10 people were injured. A local police deputy described the attack as "definitely" a terrorist act. France's Interior Minister Bernard Cazenueve was on his way to the scene.
France's anti-terrorism prosecutor has opened an investigation into the incident. The country went on high alert after a series of attacks in January that left 20 people dead in and around Paris region, including the Islamic terrorists.
France has been grappling with radical Islam for several years, with the Jan. 7 attack at the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo putting the nation's homegrown terrorism problem in the spotlight earlier this year. In that attack, two radical Muslim brothers, Saïd and Chérif Kouachi, incensed over the publishing of caricatures of Muhammad, stormed the magazine's offices and killed 12, including staffers and a police officer. In subsequent, related attacks over the next few days, another five people were killed.
The Associated Press contributed to this report
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