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Isil knifemen who 'slit 85-year-old priest's throat' and took nuns hostage shot dead as second victim fights for life

Isil opened a new front in its war with the West by murdering a French priest on Tuesday in the first such attack on a Christian church in Europe.

Two terrorists, proclaimed as “soldiers” by the extremist group, cut the throat of Father Jacques Hamel, an 85-year-old priest, after taking worshippers including two nuns hostage during mass at a church in Normandy.

Experts said the atrocity, in Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray near Rouen, marked a new departure for the jihadists following a catalogue of attacks on places of worship in the Middle East, Africa and Asia.

Father Hamel – forced to kneel by his two killers who were later shot dead by police – was last night hailed as a “martyr of faith”.