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'Isis' beheading: Man decapitated in France 'by attacker who tried to blow up factory' 'Isis' beheading: Islamist decapitates boss and tries to blow up factory near Lyon
(about 4 hours later)
France is in shock today after another alleged terrorist attack where a man was decapitated by a suspected Islamist who tried to blow up a factory. An Islamist terrorist tied his boss’s severed head to a fence before making a failed ram raid on a chemical factory near Lyon on Friday.
The murdered man's head was found attached to a wire mesh fence surrounded two flags - one black and one white - near the entrance to the Air Products factory in Saint-Quentin-Fallavier, police said. Investigators believe the attack was intended to take scores of lives.
According to Le Parisien newspaper, the man's face was covered in Arabic writing and there was speculation that he may have been murdered elsewhere and the body then taken to Air Products for the gruesome display. Forensic investigators and gendarmes next to the fence where the head was found in Saint-Quentin-Fallavier Images caught on security cameras of the attacker placing the head on the factory fence before the attack have shocked France. The head was wrapped in an Isis banner carrying a message in Arabic.
A man named as Yassin Salhi, aged 35 and from Saint-Priest in Lyon, was detained by firefighters at the scene and has been arrested. The victim was the 45-year-old manager of a local transport company, which had permission to enter the heavily protected site. The attacker was one of his drivers, Yassin Salhi, 35, a French-born father of three.
Sources told the AFP news agency that his victim was Salhi's own manager at a delivery firm that did work for Air Products. Forensic investigators and gendarmes next to the fence where the head was found in Saint-Quentin-Fallavier
Authorities said the suspect had previously been under security service surveillance after fears he had been radicalised and had links to extremists. The rest of the manager’s body was found after the attack outside the Air Products factory at Saint-Quentin-Fallavier, in the outer south-east suburbs of Lyon.
Europe 1 radio carried a telephone  interview with a woman which it identified as Salhi's wife. Security camera tapes showed his employee – who had previously been identified by French authorities as an Islamist – attaching his boss’s head to a chain-link fence in what investigators described as a “macabre piece of theatre”.
She said that her husband had left for his delivery job this morning and she had heard nothing from him since. Special forces of France's Research and Intervention Brigades (BRI) escort an unidentified woman and a child from Salhi's home Salhi then climbed back into the company truck and entered the factory compound in the normal way. Once inside the site, he drove at high speed into a pile of gas-canisters, apparently intending to cause a huge explosion.
“What’s happening here? My heart is going to break. It can’t be him,” she added. “We are normal family with children We live normally.” Luckily, the resulting blast was relatively small. Two factory employees were injured. Salhi survived with a minor head injury.
Asked if her husband was religious, she said: “Yes, we are muslims. But in a normal way. We respect Ramadan. No more than that.” Special forces of France's Research and Intervention Brigades (BRI) escort an unidentified woman and a child from Salhi's home After the blast he ran into one of the factory buildings to try to tamper with other gas canisters. When fire fighters arrived he shouted “Allahou Akbar” (God is the greatest) before he was overpowered.
It was later reported that Mr Salhi’s wife and another person from the home where they lived with their three children had been taken into custody for questioning. Although less disastrous than it might have been – and overshadowed by the killings in Tunisia – the attack sent shock waves through France less than six months after the jihadist murders and attack on Charlie Hebdo in Paris in January.
A timeline pieced together by French media after watching surveillance footage suggested Salhi arrived at Air Products in a van and put the head on the fence with the flags. President François Hollande left the EU summit in Brussels to chair a crisis meeting of his defence council in Paris. He appealed for calm in the face of the continuing jihadist threat. It was vital, he said, that the country did not give way to “fear” and “useless divisions and intolerable suspicions”. 
He then drove into the factory and crashed into a pile of gas cannisters, causing an explosion that was heard at 9.50am local time (8.50 BST). Patrick Mennucci, a Socialist MP and expert on jihadist networks, said: “France is at war. We have in our territory individuals who do not obey the laws of the Republic, only the fatwas of the Islamic State.”
The attacker then reportedly ran into Air Products in an attempt to cause more explosions with the gas and chemicals stored there but in that time, firefighters arrived to tackle the gas blaze. Police also arrested a suspected accomplice, who was seen driving up and down the road near the factory on Friday morning. They also took into custody Salhi’s wife and another woman at his flat.
They arrived to hear Salhi shouting 'Allahu Akbar!' (God is great) and managed to surround him and keep him there until police arrived to arrest him. Before she was taken into custody – possibly for her own protection – Salhi’s wife expressed her disbelief at his alleged actions.
The decapitated victim, in his 50s, was reportedly the manager of a transport company in the Lyon area, which was subcontracted by Air Products. “What’s happening here? My heart is going to break. It can’t be him,” she said. “We are a normal family with children. We live normally.”
There was continued confusion over why initial reports said there were two attackers in the car, but only one man has been arrested. Police investigators carry banners with illegible Arabic writing on them Police investigators carry banners with illegible Arabic writing on them Asked if her husband was religious, she said: “Yes, we are Muslims. But in a normal way. We respect Ramadan. No more than that.”
Speaking from Brussels before returning to France, President Francois Hollande said one person had been killed and two injured in what bore all the "hallmarks of a terrorist attack". It is understood that Salhi had previously been under surveillance by the French security services for alleged involvement with Salafist Islamic radicals, but was taken off the watch list after two years.
He said there was "no doubt" the terrorists, one man and an accomplice, meant to cause an explosion at the factory using gas cannisters. Investigators believe that the Air Products factory was targeted because it was US-owned and was assumed to contain highly explosive chemicals. The factory was on an official list of hazardous industrial sites but was considered a relatively “low” level of risk. It dealt with chemicals for agriculture, which were not highly combustible.
"There is emotion but emotion cannot be the only response. There must also be action, prevention, dissuasion," the President added. Investigators believe that those who planned the raid assumed that the whole factory would explode, killing the 40 employees on the site and people in offices and factories nearby.
"It is vital to further our values, to never to give in and never, whatever the circumstances, create unnecessary division or intolerable suspicion. The placing of a severed head on the factory’s fence appeared to be deliberately provocative reference to the Isis practice of beheading enemies.
"We will ensure that the French people are protected and eradicate the groups or individuals responsible for these acts." French politicians spoke of their outrage that decapitation as an instrument of terror had been imported to Europe.
The French interior minister, Bernard Cazeneuve, spoke in Isère this afternoon, where he identified the suspect and said several other arrests have been made in relation to the investigation. Awkward questions once again face French internal security chiefs after the attack.
He said Salhi did not have a criminal record but had links to Salafists and was known to security forces since 2006, when they believed he had been radicalised. They stopped surveillance two years later. The Interior Minister, Bernard Cazeneuve, said Yassin Salhi, the suspect arrested at the scene, had been under surveillance as a follower of the radical Salafist interpretation of Islam. His activities and phone calls were monitored from 2006 to 2008, when the alert was lifted.
Speaking from Brussels, where he is attending EU talks, David Cameron said terrorism is a "threat that faces all of us" and that attacks like those today in France, Kuwait and Tunisia "can happen anywhere". Similar revelations were made after the jihadist attacks on Charlie Hebdo magazine and a kosher supermarket in Paris in January. One of the Kouachi brothers who attacked Charlie Hebdo, killing 12, had been under surveillance until the previous autumn. Mohamed Merah, the “scooter killer” who murdered seven people in the Toulouse area in 2012, had been interviewed by counter-terrorism agents.
"(We must) deal with the threat at source, whether that is Isil (Isis) in Syria and Iraq or other extremist groups around the world," the Prime Minister added. Yassin Salhi was born in Doubs in eastern France in March 1980. He lived in Saint Priest, a suburb of Lyon 20 miles from the attack, with his wife and three children.
"Perhaps more important than anything is this poisonous, radical narrative that is turning so many young minds. We have to combat it with everything that we have."
He announced an an emergency Cobra meeting with ministers later today on counter-terrorism and intelligence sharing.
Air Products is headquartered in the US but is an international corporation with facilities in several countries, including the UK, mostly selling gases and chemicals for industrial use.
A spokesperson did not confirm whether its staff were among the two people reported injured and one dead but said the site had been evacuated.
He added: "Our crisis and emergency response teams have been activated and are working closely with all relevant authorities."
The vehicle used by the attacker belonged to a sub-contracting company which had a right to enter the site, according to Isere's Prefect, the senior national government administrator.
Jean-Paul Bonnetain said investigators were now looking at the possibility that the terrorists had first attacked Air Products or one of its employees and hijacked the vehicle.
France has been in a state of high alert since the attacks on the Charlie Hebdo offices and a Kosher supermarket in Paris.