A decapitated body daubed with Arabic writing was found at a US-owned factory in southeast France yesterday after an assailant rammed a delivery van into gas containers at the site, triggering an explosion.
A source close to the investigation said the victim was the boss of the suspect, a delivery man. The two had gone to the company to make a delivery but the assailant killed and beheaded his 50-year-old manager before entering the secured site in the vehicle.
The attacker was injured in the blast and arrested on the site. His wife was later taken into custody and authorities were questioning at least one other suspected accomplice. Speaking from a European Union summit in Brussels, French President Francois Hollande described it as a terrorist attack and said all measures would be taken to stop any future strikes on a country still reeling from Islamist assaults in January.
Referring to a separate gun attack at a hotel in Tunisia which killed 37 people and a suicide attack in Kuwait that killed 25, Hollande called for nations to work together to combat security threats.
Terrorism is our common enemy
“There is no other link other than to say that terrorism is our common enemy,” he told reporters on his return to Paris.
Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve named the suspect as Yassin Sahli. He said Sahli did not have a criminal record but had been under surveillance from 2006 to 2008 on suspicion of having become radicalised by Islamist associates.
The attack happened at an industrial zone near Saint-Quentin Fallavier to the south of Lyon.
Sources close to the investigation said Sahli was a 35-year-old professional driver who lived in the Lyon suburbs.
Europe 1 radio interviewed a woman they identified as his wife.
“In the morning he left for work and didn’t come home between noon and 2:00, I was waiting for him,” she told Europe 1 radio, saying she and her family of three children lived normal lives as Muslims. “My heart is about to give out.”
French BFMTV television filming outside Sahli’s apartment showed pictures of police leading out a woman, her head covered by a blanket, into a waiting car.