Mosque in French town where priest killed was inaugurated on land gifted by church

SAINT-ETIENNE-DU-ROUVRAY, France — The mosque in a northern French town where a local priest was killed on Tuesday was inaugurated 16 years ago on land donated by the Catholic parish to which he belonged.

Two armed men stormed the church during morning mass in Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray, taking at least five people hostage before slitting the priest’s throat and leaving another person in a critical condition.

The attackers, who the Islamic State group described as “soldiers” for the jihadist terror group, were shot dead by police.

One of them carried out the attack while on house arrest, in a revelation bound to raise further questions about security failings in France.

The imam of the mosque said he was “stunned” by the murder of the local priest, Jacques Hamel, who he described as a friend.

“I don’t understand, all of our prayers go to his family and the Catholic community,” said Mohammed Karabila, who heads the regional council of Muslim worship for Haute Normandie.

It was in this mosque that the funeral ceremony was held for Imad Ibn Ziaten, a 30-year-old French paratrooper who was killed on March 11, 2012 by jihadist Mohamed Merah.

It was the first murder in Merah’s spree which also included the killing of three Jewish children and a rabbi outside a Toulouse Jewish day school over a week after, and the murders of two French Muslim soldiers several days before that.

“It is a total shock, it brings back the pain,” said Ibn Ziaten’s mother Latifa, who launched an association to fight Islamic radicalization after her son’s death.

Like other towns around the city of Rouen, Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray has a growing problem with radicalization, she added.

“There are a lot of families that come and see me because their children are radicalizing,” she said.

Karabila said he had met with Hamel on several occasions and had been part of an interfaith committee for the past 18 months.

“We talked about religion and how to live together. It has been 18 months that civilians have been attacked, now they are attacking religious symbols, using our religion as a pretext. It is no longer possible,” he said.

He said he was “stunned by the death of my friend. He was someone who gave his life to others. We are dumbfounded at the mosque.”

France has been on high alert after three major attacks in 18 months.

When Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel plowed a truck into crowds celebrating Bastille Day in Nice on July 14, a bitter political spat erupted over alleged security failings, with authorities accused of not doing enough to protect people.

After Nice, France extended a state of emergency for the fourth time since IS jihadists struck Paris in November, killing 130 people.