On 13 June 2016, a police officer and his partner, a police secretary, were stabbed to death in their home in

Magnanville Magnanville () is a commune in the Yvelines department in the Île-de-France region in north-central France. It was one of the thirty communes in the Communauté d'agglomération de Mantes-en-Yvelines, merged into the Communauté urbaine Grand P ...

, France, located about west of Paris, by a man convicted in 2013 of associating with a group planning

terrorist acts Terrorism, in its broadest sense, is the use of criminal violence to provoke a state of terror or fear, mostly with the intention to achieve political or religious aims. The term is used in this regard primarily to refer to intentional violen ...

Amaq News Agency Amaq News Agency ( ar, وكالة أعماق الإخبارية) is a news outlet linked to the Islamic State (IS). Amaq publishes news reports about claims of responsibility for terrorist attacks in Western countries. It is often the "first poi ...

, an online outlet said to be sponsored by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), said that a source had claimed that ISIL was behind the attack, an assertion that was later validated. Prosecutor François Molins said the attacker, Larossi Abballa, appeared to be acting on a recent general order from Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi to "kill miscreants at home with their families" during the month of

Ramadan , type = islam , longtype = Religious , image = Ramadan montage.jpg , caption=From top, left to right: A crescent moon over Sarıçam, Turkey, marking the beginning of the Islamic month of Ramadan. Ramadan Quran reading in Bandar Torkaman, Iran. ...

. On 18 June, prosecutors charged two men, on suspicion that Aballa was not acting alone. One of them was released in January 2017 under court-supervised parole.

Attack

On the evening of 13 June 2016, in

, France, Jean-Baptiste Salvaing, a 42-year-old police

commanding officer The commanding officer (CO) or sometimes, if the incumbent is a general officer, commanding general (CG), is the officer in command of a military unit. The commanding officer has ultimate authority over the unit, and is usually given wide latitu ...

at the Mureaux police station, was coming home after work to his house in allée des Perdrix. Around 8:00 p.m., a 25-year-old man, Larossi Abballa, parked his car 20 m away from the victim's house and hid behind the front gate of the house. The police officer entered his property at around 8:30 p.m. and Abballa immediately attacked him,

stabbing A stabbing is penetration or rough contact with a sharp or pointed object at close range. ''Stab'' connotes purposeful action, as by an assassin or murderer, but it is also possible to accidentally stab oneself or others. Stabbing differs from ...

him twice, while shouting " Allahu akbar." The victim managed to flee into the street, where he met a neighbour and asked him to call emergency services and get to cover. Abballa finally caught up with the police officer, stabbing him again several times before barricading himself in the house of his victim. Inside the house, he murdered the victim's partner, Jessica Schneider, a 36-year-old administration worker at the Mantes-la-Jolie police station, by slitting her throat. The couple's three-year-old child remained unharmed. Inside the house, at 8:52 p.m., Abballa started a Facebook Live broadcast on his mobile phone while the RAID and BRI police special forces converged on the crime scene and set up an attack plan. In his 13-minute-long live broadcast, Abballa claimed his double murder and his allegiance to

Abu Mohammad al-Adnani Taha Sobhi Falaha ( ar, طٰهٰ صُبْحِيِّ فَلَاحَةٍ, Ṭāhā Ṣobḥī Falāḥa; 1977 – 30 August 2016), known as Abu Muhammad al-Adnani al-Shami ( ar, أَبُو مُحَمَّدٍ ٱلْعَدْنَانِيُّ ٱلشَ� ...

, ISIL's spokesperson, considered as the leader of the

November 2015 Paris attacks The November 2015 Paris attacks () were a series of coordinated Islamist terrorist attacks that took place on Friday, 13 November 2015 in Paris, France, and the city's northern suburb, Saint-Denis. Beginning at 9:15p.m., three suicide bombers ...

. He called for "attacks on police personnel, journalists, public figures and rappers", citing several public figures. He also claimed "we are going to make the Euro a cemetery", referring to the ongoing UEFA Euro 2016 football competition, taking place in France at that time. He also mentioned the couple's child, who was still alive, saying "I don't know what I am going to do with him yet". On the scene, police teams evacuated and locked-down the area around the house. The RAID special unit attempted to negotiate with Abballa. During these negotiations, Abballa said he was a practicing

Muslim Muslims ( ar, المسلمون, , ) are people who adhere to Islam, a monotheistic religion belonging to the Abrahamic tradition. They consider the Quran, the foundational religious text of Islam, to be the verbatim word of the God of Abrah ...

, that he was observing Ramadan, and that he swore allegiance three weeks earlier to ISIL leader Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi. He also said he answered a call from Al-Baghdadi to "kill the

infidel An infidel (literally "unfaithful") is a person accused of disbelief in the central tenets of one's own religion, such as members of another religion, or the irreligious. Infidel is an ecclesiastical term in Christianity around which the Church ...

s, at their homes with their families". Later in the night, after unsuccessful attempts at negotiating with the suspect, and threats from the suspect to "blow the place up if the police tried to break in", the RAID assault team, along with BRI officers, entered the house around 12:00 a.m. and killed Abballa in a firefight. They retrieved the body of the police officer's partner and their three-year-old son, who was alive but in shock.

Perpetrator

The assailant, 25-year-old Larossi Abballa, was a

French citizen French nationality law is historically based on the principles of '' jus soli'' (Latin for "right of soil") and '' jus sanguinis'', according to Ernest Renan's definition, in opposition to the German definition of nationality, ''jus sanguinis'' ...

of Moroccan descent from the suburb of Mantes-la-Jolie. He was born in Meulan, France.Alissa J. Rubin & Lilia Blaise
Killing Twice for ISIS and Saying So Live on Facebook
''The New York Times'' (14 June 2016). Abballa had a police record for theft and violence by 2011.Angelique Chrisafis & Kim Willsher
French police officer and partner murdered in 'odious terrorist attack'
''The Guardian'' (14 June 2016). In that year, Abballa, then age 20, was arrested for his participation in a group that recruited would-be jihadis to go to Pakistan and Afghanistan for training. Abballa and seven other men were convicted in Paris in 2013 for their involvement in the plot; Abballa was convicted of "criminal association with the aim of preparing terrorist acts." On 30 September 2013, Abballa was sentenced to three years in prison, six months of which were suspended; because he had already spent two years and two months in jail awaiting trial, he was released after being sentenced. Abballa was under surveillance for several years after his release, but this monitoring ended in 2015. '' The New York Times'' described the attack as "tied to the Islamic State," citing al-Adnani's pre-Ramadan speech urging attacks on Europe and the United States.

Court proceedings

On 18 June, prosecutors charged two men, Charaf-Din Aberouz and Saad Rajraji, who had been convicted in 2013 of "being part of a French jihadist group," on suspicion that Abballa "wasn't acting alone." Rajraji was released in January 2017, under court-supervised parole.

Reactions

French President

François Hollande François Gérard Georges Nicolas Hollande (; born 12 August 1954) is a French politician who served as President of France from 2012 to 2017. He previously was First Secretary of the Socialist Party (PS) from 1997 to 2008, Mayor of Tulle from ...

said the attack was "unquestionably" terrorism. French Prime Minister Manuel Valls said on France Inter radio: "I said we were at war, that this war will take a generation, that it will be long." On 3 August 2016, both victims were posthumously knighted with the Légion d'honneur, the highest French order of merit.

Similar attacks

In February 2017, '' The New York Times'' reported that the Magnanville attack was part of a group at least other four knife attacks in France in a span of 13-months, including the Louvre machete attack of 2017, the

January 2016 Paris police station attack On 7 January 2016 in Paris, a man wearing a fake explosive belt attacked police officers with a meat cleaver while shouting "Allahu Akbar!" He was shot and killed by officers when he failed to obey an order to stop. The attempted attack took place ...

and the 2016 St-Etienne de Rouvray beheading attack.

References