Police find close link to Syria with France attack suspect

The suspected Islamist who attempted to blow up a French chemical plant on Friday has admitted killing his manager beforehand, a source close to the investigation said on Sunday, as police linked the suspect to a militant now in Syria. Yassin Salhi, 35, told detectives he had killed Hervé Cornara in a parking area before arriving at the plant in Saint Quentin-Fallavier, where he tried in vain to cause a major explosion. Police found the 54-year-old victim’s decapitated body and head, framed by Islamic inscriptions, at the plant, which is owned by the U.S. firm Air Products.

We cannot lose this war, because it is essentially a war of civilizatio. It is our society, our civilization and our values that we must defend.

Prime Minister Manuel Valls said of the attack in France.

Examination of one of Salhi’s mobile phones revealed that he had taken a picture of himself with the severed head before his arrest and sent the image to a Canadian phone number. The phone number belongs to a French national, known by his first name Sebastien-Younes, who has been in Syria since last year, the same source said, confirming media reports. His last known location was the Islamic State stronghold of Raqqa. The suspect, whose wife and sister were released on Sunday after two days of questioning, is said by French security services to have associated with hardline Islamists over more than a decade, and had previously been flagged by them as a potential risk.

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