A decapitated body covered in Arabic writing was found at a gas
factory in southeastern France after an attack Friday, with the severed
head posted on the entrance gate, police sources and French media said.
The attacker rammed a car into the premises, triggering an explosion.
The assailant survived the blast and was arrested, police said. The
identity of the beheaded victim was not clear, but French media said it
was a manager of a local transport company, on the site for a delivery.
President Francois Hollande, speaking in Brussels, said one person
was killed and two injured in the attack, which began shortly before 10
a.m. local time (4 a.m. EDT) when a car crashed the gate of the gas
factory in Saint-Quentin-Fallavier, southeast of Lyon. The car then
plowed into gas canisters, setting off an explosion, he said.
"No doubt about the intention — to cause an explosion," Hollande said, calling the attack "of a terrorist nature."
A security official said a severed head was found posted on the gate
at the entrance to the factory, a tactic that bears similarities to
those of the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant's (ISIL) practice of
beheading prisoners and displaying the heads.
The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not
authorized to release details to the media, said the body was found near
the site of the explosion but the victim was not decapitated by the
blast.
Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said one suspect, named as Yassin
Sahli, had been arrested, and police were holding other suspected
accomplices. He said Sahli did not have a criminal record but had been
under surveillance from 2006 to 2008 on suspicion.
"Two individuals deliberately rammed a car into the gas containers to
trigger an explosion," a police source said of the attack in an
industrial zone by the town of Saint-Quentin Fallavier, 20 miles
southeast of Lyon.
However, the number of assailants was thrown into doubt, with Hollande saying it could have been either one or two.
The industrial site belongs to Air Products, an American chemical company based in Allentown, Pennsylvania.
France's anti-terror prosecutor said an investigation was opened into the attack.
France went on high alert after attacks in January against the
satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo, a kosher grocery and a policewoman
that left 20 people dead in the Paris region, including the three
attackers.
Since then, fears of copycat attacks have risen. One person was
arrested after authorities said he was plotting to gun down people in
churches in the Paris area.
The coordinated attacks in January revived concerns in France, and
the rest of Europe, about the threat posed by European citizens who may
be inspired or deployed by armed groups aboard. Al-Qaeda in the Arabian
Peninsula (AQAP) claimed credit for the Charlie Hebdo attack.
More than 12,000 foreign fighters have fought in Syria since the
beginning of the country’s civil war in 2011, with as many as 700 of
those believed to be from France, according to a report by the Soufan
Group (PDF).
One of them, French national Mehdi Nemmouche, killed four people at a Jewish museum in Brussels in May 2014.
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