Terror Attacks This Morning In France, Kuwait, Tunisia

By Susie Madrak — June 26, 2015

Three terror attacks topped the news this morning:

PARIS — An attacker stormed an American-owned industrial chemical plant near Lyon, France, on Friday, decapitated one person and tried unsuccessfully to blow up the factory, in what the French authorities said was a terrorist attack.

President François Hollande said the attacker had been arrested and identified. The interior minister, Bernard Cazeneuve, said the suspect had been known to the intelligence services and had been under surveillance in 2006 as someone believed to have been radicalized.

The attacker had entered the plant in a vehicle that may have been driven by an accomplice, Mr. Hollande said, and tried to use gas canisters to set off a bigger explosion. He did not say whether the accomplice had also been detained. “The attack was of a terrorist nature since a body was discovered, decapitated and with inscriptions,” Mr. Hollande said.

"We are trapped in our room" - tourists describe horror of gunmen's attack on Tunisia hotels http://t.co/Xt2sQQAF5Q pic.twitter.com/8iYykb7Z3P

— Sky News (@SkyNews) June 26, 2015

Followed by this:

Gunmen armed with Kalashnikovs killed at least 27 people Friday, mostly tourists, in an attack on coastal resort hotels in Tunisia, according to multiple media reports, citing the interior ministry.

At least one gunman was killed in an exchange of gunfire with police at the Impérial Marhaba hotel in the coastal town of Sousse, according to Tunisia's state-run TAP news agency.

Sousse, a popular vacation spot for European tourists, is located about 90 miles southeast of the capital Tunis.

The news agency said the battle between police and the terrorists was still going on Friday afternoon.

#ISIS claims responsibility for #Kuwait mosque attack: Statement http://t.co/ntzXjYroR0

— ST Foreign Desk (@STForeignDesk) June 26, 2015

And this:

A suicide bomber blew himself up at a packed Shi'ite Muslim mosque in Kuwait city during Friday prayers, killing more than ten people, the governor of Kuwait City said.

The Islamic State militant group claimed responsibility for the attack in a statement posted on social media and said it targeted a "temple of the rejectionists" - a term it usually uses to refer to Shi'ite Muslims, whom it regards as heretics.

It was the first suicide bombing attack on a Shi'ite mosque in the small Gulf Arab oil exporter, where Sunnis and Shi'ites live side by side with little apparent friction.

Islamic State on Tuesday urged its followers to step up attacks during the Ramadan fasting month against Christians, Shi'ites and Sunni Muslims fighting with a U.S.-led coalition against the ultra-radical group.

Kuwaiti parliament member Khalil al-Salih said worshippers were kneeling in prayer when a suicide bomber walked into the Imam al-Sadeq Mosque side and blew himself up, destroying walls and the ceiling.

"It was obvious from the suicide bomber's body that he was young. He walked into the prayer hall during sujood (kneeling in prayer), he looked ...in his 20s, I saw him with my own eyes," he told Reuters by telephone.