 "ISIS")
A convicted radical who killed a French police couple in an IS-inspired stabbing was carrying a "hit list" of VIPs and urged followers to turn Euro 2016 into a "graveyard", officials said today.
Yesterday's assault in a small town, northwest of Paris was the first deadly strike in France since the coordinated attacks in the capital by an Islamic State cell in November, which killed 130 people.
Larossi Abballa, who was under surveillance after serving time for links to jihadist networks, first stabbed 42-year-old Jean-Baptiste Salvaing outside his home.
He then holed up inside the house with Salvaing's 36-year-old partner Jessica Schneider and the couple's three-year-old son.
Shortly afterwards he killed Schneider by slitting her throat.
Abballa then posted on Facebook a live 13-minute video of himself inside the house with the child in which he admits the murders and urges fellow jihadists to carry out more bloodshed.
He was later killed during a police raid which ended the standoff in the town of Magnanville.
The child escaped unharmed but in shock.
Paris prosecutor Francois Molins said Abballa, 25, who came from the nearby suburb of Mantes-la-Jolie, told police negotiators before his death that he had sworn fealty to IS three weeks earlier.
He told negotiators he was responding to a call by IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi to "kill infidels, at home, with their families."
IS claimed Monday's attack in a statement issued by the Amaq news agency, a regular conduit for IS announcements.
Molins said police had found a hit list at the scene naming police and VIPs including journalists and rappers to be targeted.
They also found three knives, one of which was covered in blood.
Three men from Abballa's entourage have been arrested over the attack, Molins said.
One of the three was among seven people convicted alongside Abballa in 2013 over their involvement in a network recruiting jihadists for Pakistan, Molins added.
Abballa, who had been known to police as a youth for petty crime, spent over two years in custody.
More recently, he was investigated in connection with a network recruiting jihadists to fight in Syria.
His wiretapped conversations gave no indication that he was planning an attack, however, Molins said.
Yesterday's stabbings comes with France on high alert during the Euro tournament, with up to 90,000 police and security guards deployed to ensure the safety of local and visiting fans.
