Two attackers slit the throat of an 86-year-old priest celebrating Mass in a French church, killing him and gravely injuring one of the worshippers present before being shot dead by police.
The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the first attack in a church in the West.
Police rescued three other people inside the church - including a nun - in the small northwestern town of Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray, said Interior Ministry spokesman Pierre-Henry Brandet.
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It was the first known attack claimed by IS inside a church in the West. A church outside Paris was targeted last year, but the attack never was carried out.
A statement published by the ISIS-affiliated Amaq news agency said the attack was carried out by "two soldiers of the Islamic State" who acted in response to calls to target nations in the US-led coalition fighting IS in Iraq and Syria.
The statement echoed claims in other recent attacks in France and neighboring Germany. It repeated its threat to Western "crusaders."
The RAID special intervention force carried out a search for possible explosives in or around the church.
"The investigations are ongoing. There are still unknowns," Brandet said. "There are dogs, explosive detectors and bomb disposal services" at the church outside Rouen.
A nun who was in the church said the priest was forced to the ground before his throat was slit. The nun, identified as Sister Danielle, told BFM television: "They forced him to his knees. He wanted to defend himself. And that's when the tragedy happened."
She said the attackers recorded themselves. "They did a sort of sermon around the altar, in Arabic. It's a horror" Dominique Lebrun, the archbishop of Rouen, confirmed the death of 86-year-old Rev. Jacques Hamel.
The priest "was always ready to help," said Rouen diocese official Philippe Mahut. He said Hamel had been at the church for the past decade.
"Sometimes he was running all around, and his desire was to spread a message for which he consecrated his life," Mahut said in an interview with AP. "And he certainly didn't think that consecrating his life would mean for him to die while celebrating a Mass, which is a message of love."
French President Francois Hollande, arriving on the scene, called it a "vile terrorist attack" and one more sign that France is at war with the ISIS, which has claimed a string of attacks on France plus two in Germany.
"We must lead this war with all our means," he said, adding that he was calling a meeting on Wednesday of representatives of all religions.
He expressed solidarity with local Catholics, saying "they have been terribly hit by the killing of the parish priest by two terrorists claiming to belong to Daesh. I have met with the family of the priest."
The town mayor, Hubert Wulfranc, in tears, denounced the "barbarism" and, breaking down, pleaded, "Let us together be the last to cry."
A regional Muslim leader said one of the two attackers - both killed outside the church - was known to police. A police official said he had tried to go to Syria.
