London : The murder of a French police couple by an assailant, claiming allegiance to the ISIS, has been called by the French president Francois Hollande as “incontestably a terrorist act”.
Hollande said France was facing a terror threat “of a very large scale”.
The assailant who reportedly live-streamed the attack on Facebook has been identified as Larossi Abballa (25).
Abballa stabbed the 42-year-old officer to death before taking his partner and their three-year-old son hostage in their Magnanville home in north-west of Paris, around 8:30 p.m. on Monday night. He later killed the partner of the police officer.
Abballa was shot dead by the police after a standoff in the family home and the child is safe, reports the Guardian.
The assailant already had a terrorism conviction and had been sentenced to three years in prison in 2013 for “criminal association in view to preparing terrorist attacks” over his role in a recruitment network of jihadists.
IS has reportedly claimed responsibility for the attack in one of its media channels.
“Islamic State fighter kills deputy chief of the police station in the city of Les Mureaux and his wife with blade weapons near Paris”, a US-based intelligence group, cited the Isis-linked Amaq News Agency as saying.
The killing comes a day after a gunman claiming fealty to the ISIS shot dead 49 people at a gay nightclub in Orlando.(ANI)