French National With Ties to Islamic State Stabs and Kills Police Officer

On Monday June 13^th, a French national killed a police captain and his domestic partner in the French town of Magnaville. The national was identified as 25-year-old Larossi Abballa. Abballa reportedly ambushed unarmed Jean-Baptiste Salvaing (42) outside of his home before moving inside, killing Salvaing’s partner, another employee of the Department of the Interior known to the press as “Jessica S.” (36). After hearing screams coming from the house, one of Salviang’s neighbors called the police, who approached the house, leading to a three-hour stand-off between police and Abballa, as he held the couple’s three-year-old son hostage. Police finally entered the house killing Abballa; the child was rescued unharmed.

French President Francois Hollande condemned the killings as a “cowardly murder” and declared that it was “incontestably a terrorist attack”.

Some witnesses say that the knife-wielding man was heard yelling “Allahu Akbar” (God is greater) when ambushing the police captain outside of his house. Abballa reportedly live-streamed the killings on his Facebook page and during failed negotiations with police, claimed allegiance to the Islamic State. Amaq, the Islamic State’s news agency seemingly accepted his allegiance, issuing a statement that read: (roughly translated from Arabic) “Islamic State fighter kills deputy chief of the police station in the city of Les Mureaux and his wife with blade weapons”.

In the live-stream, the man is seen killing the police captain’s partner before turning to their son. The attacker then hesitated, exclaiming, “I don’t know yet what I’m going to do with him [the child]”; the child was found unharmed when police entered the house.

According to Paris Prosecutor Francois Molins, police found a potential list of terror targets, including rappers, journalists, police, and other high-profile celebrities in the assailant’s home.

French authorities were familiar with Abballa. According to Molins, the jihadist had previously been sentenced to three years in prison for involvement in a jihad-recruiting network but was released after six months, after having already served two years of his sentence while awaiting trial and having six months of his sentence reduced.  During that case Abballa did not act alone, but as a member of a group of eight men, two of which had travelled to Lahore (Pakistan) to meet with a member of Al-Qaeda; the members were arrested upon arrival. Following this arrest, the leader of the group, an Indian national, was sentenced to eight years in prison and permanently banned from French territory. The other members were given diminishing sentences according to their importance in the group. According to anti-terror judge Marc Trevdic, “Abballa was a relatively minor figure”.

Following his release from prison, Abballa was placed on France’s “S-list”, a list of potential security threats to the state. While on this list, Abballa was part of an investigation into a Syrian jihadi network.

Attacks like this highlight the difficulty of detecting small-scale terrorist acts. Similarly, it marks how authorities, particularly in Europe, continue to be over burdened by the sheer number of potential terror suspects on watch lists, forcing them to prioritize and thereby risk losing track of suspected jihadists identified as being of lesser importance. Despite this, a number of flaws in French counterterror efforts are apparent.

First of all, Abballa, a known terror associate, was jailed for only two and a half years, after clearly being involved in a jihadi recruiting operation. This highlights that France continues to suffer from early lack of attention to the threat of Islamic terror. It also suggests the need for strict penalties for those involved in material support activities, including recruitment, and improving prison security to prevent convicted terror supporters from having access to potential recruits.

Individual attacks are expected to continue, as the Islamic State recently called for an increase in attacks during the month of Ramadan. Given this, it is important to keep a close watch on those who are known to have previously engaged in acts of terror.