ISIS Claims Responsibility For France Church Attack

PARIS (CBSNewYork/AP) -- The Islamic State group has claimed responsibility for the latest attack in France in which two attackers invaded a church and killed an 84-year-old priest before being shot and killed by police.

The claim came in a statement published Tuesday by the IS-affiliated Aamaq news agency.  It said the attack near the Normandy city of Rouen was carried out by "two soldiers of the Islamic State.''

It added the attack was in response to its calls to target countries of the U.S.-led coalition which is fighting IS.

Archbishop Dominique Lebrun of Rouen identified the priest as 84-year-old Father Jacques Hamel. Another person inside the church was seriously injured and is hovering between life and death, Interior Ministry spokesman Pierre-Henry Brandet said.

Police managed to rescue three people from the church in the small northwestern town of Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray, Brandet said. The hostage-taking occurred during morning Mass, he told reporters.

French President Francois Hollande called it a "vile terrorist attack'' and said it's another sign that France is at war with IS.

"We must lead this war with all our means,'' he said in Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray.

Hollande expressed support for all France's Catholics but said the attack targets "all the French."

Pope Francis also condemned the attack in the strongest terms.

Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, said in a statement Tuesday that the attack hits particularly hard "because this horrific violence took place in a church, a sacred place in which the love of God is announced, and the barbaric murder of a priest and the involvement of the faithful.''

The pope, he said, has expressed "pain and horror for this absurd violence, with the strongest condemnation for every form of hatred and prayer for those affected.''

Brandet, speaking on BFM TV, said the RAID special intervention force was searching the church and its perimeter for possible explosives and terrorism investigators had been summoned.

The hostage situation was the first recently known attack inside a church in France, CBS News reported. One was targeted last year, but the attack never was carried out.

The incident comes as France is under high alert after an attack in Nice that killed 84 people and a string of deadly attacks last year claimed by the Islamic State group.

France is also under a state of emergency and has extra police presence in the wake of the July 14 Nice attack.

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