French police find homemade explosives, ISIS notes belonging to terrorist

Homemade explosive devices were discovered at the site of the deadly attack in southern France on Friday. Police also found notes referring to ISIS at the terrorist’s home.

By: AP and World Israel News Staff

A French judicial official says three homemade explosive devices were found in the supermarket in southern France that was the site of a deadly attack by a man calling himself “a soldier” of the Islamic State (ISIS) terror group.

Also found were a 7.65-caliber handgun and a hunting knife, the official said on Saturday. He wasn’t authorized to speak publicly about an ongoing investigation.

The supermarket in Trebes was the site of an hours-long attack Friday that claimed four lives, including Redouane Lakdim, the 25-year-old Moroccan-born attacker who was killed when special police stormed the market.

A judicial official says police who searched Lakdim’s home found notes referring to ISIS that appeared to be a final testament. Also found in the search of the home were a computer and telephone, the official said Saturday.

Heroic officer stands in for female hostage, dies

Lakdim killed three people in the Super U market near the southern city of Carcassonne, where he was holding hostages. One victim – Lt. Col. Arnaud Beltrame, a 44-year-old gendarme who stood in for a female hostage and was shot – died of his wounds early Saturday. More than a dozen people were wounded.

The Paris prosecutors’ office says that police have detained a 17-year-old in connection with the investigation into the Islamic terror attack. The unidentified young man, a friend of Lakdim, was arrested overnight over alleged criminal association in relation with a terrorist enterprise.

Paris prosecutor Francois Molins said Friday that another person, a woman close to Lakdim, was taken into custody on the same grounds. Molins did not identify her.

Jewish community: Attack ‘reawakens fear and pain’

Conseil Représentatif des Institutions juives de France (CRIF), the umbrella group of French Jewish communities, said the supermarket attack “reawakens in us the fear and pain that we felt on Jan. 9, 2015,” when Islamic terrorist Amedy Coulibaly took hostages at the Hyper Cacher kosher food market – also on a Friday, when it was packed with shoppers preparing for Shabbat – and murdered four French Jews before French security forces managed to kill him.

After acknowledging Friday that the attack was “an act of Islamic terror,” French President Emmanuel Macron, with Prime Minister Édouard Philippe by his side, addressed the nation, saying, “I want to tell the nation tonight of my absolute determination in leading this fight.”

“I urge our fellow French citizens to remain aware of the terrorist threat, but to also be aware of the force and resistance our people demonstrated each and every time it was attacked,” he said.

“I condemn the vicious terrorist attack that took place in France. The civilized world must unite and act together to defeat terror. On behalf of the Government of Israel, I send condolences to the families of those who were murdered and to the French people,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement Friday.