Islamic State releases clip of Frenchman who killed couple

Islamic State’s Amaq news agency released a video showing the suspect in the knifing of a French police couple confessing to the killings.

The video of Larossi Abballa, released after his death, appears to be filmed inside the home of the couple as security forces closed in.

In the video, Abballa says: “I just killed a police officer and his wife.”

He adds: “The police are currently surrounding me.”

The video was edited, and the victims do not appear. Neither does the couple’s young son, who survived the attack.

Monday’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.

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 had 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.