French Officials: Suspect Posted Video On Facebook Of Stabbing Attack On 2 Officers
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork/AP) -- French officials are calling a stabbing attack that left two police officers dead a terrorist attack.
Larossi Abballa, 25, stabbed a policeman Monday night then holed up in a house with the commander's partner and 3-year-old child, authorities said. The woman and Abballa were found killed after a three-hour siege and police raid.
Abballa streamed video of the attack on Facebook Live and at one point appeared puzzled over what to do with the couple's child, who was spared, two officials speaking on condition of anonymity told the Associated Press.
Prosecutor Francois Molins confirmed Abballa recorded a 12-minute video about the attack, claiming allegiance to Islamic State, and posted it on Facebook late Monday while he was in a standoff with police in the town of Magnanville, about 35 miles west of Paris. Molins did not provide details of what the video contained.
A Facebook account belonging to a Larossi Abballa was taken down Tuesday.
Abballa recently spent three years in prison for association with a terrorist enterprise, officials said. He had a history of recruiting fighters for jihad in Pakistan.
Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said Tuesday that the investigation was advancing as quickly as possible "to put eventual accomplices out of action.''
French President Francois Hollande said that the stabbing attack was "incontestably a terrorist act.'' Speaking at the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development in Paris, Hollande said Tuesday that France was facing a terror threat "of a very large scale.''
"France is not the only country concerned (by the terrorist threat), as we have seen, again, in the United States, in Orlando,'' he said, referencing the mass shooting that left 49 people dead at a gay nightclub in Florida.
Molins said Abballa had declared allegiance to Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and threatened to kill non-believers. Molins told reporters Tuesday that Abballa made the declaration in exchanges with police during a standoff Monday night.
Molins said Abballa responded to IS calls to "kill non-believers where they live,'' and with their families.
IS news agency Amaq cited an unnamed source as saying an IS fighter carried out the attack. Prosecutor's office spokeswoman Agnes Thibault-Lecuivre said French authorities have "no reason'' to doubt the claim.
Molins also said Abballa had a list of targets, including journalists and public figures. Searches of the suspect's home had turned up a list of "rappers, journalists, police officers and public personalities.''
The prosecutor did not give further detail on the list, or whether it had specific names.
Two other people have been detained in the investigation. No other information was immediately available.
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