The killer is a 25 year old French citizen of Moroccan origin who was jailed in 2013 for helping Islamist militants go to Pakistan and had been under security service surveillance, including wiretaps, at the time of the attack, police sources said. Abballa was born in the nearby town of Meulan and lived in Mantes-la-Jolie, where he had set up a fast food outlet in April, documents showed. He also had at least three other convictions for aggravated theft and illegal driving.
 
According to journalist David Thomson, specialized in radical Islamists, the attacker live broadcasted part of the assault on Facebook. In his message which accompanied the live stream, he linked the attack to the Euro 2016 soccer tournament now under way in France, saying: “The Euros will be a graveyard”.
 
The attacker, named by police and justice sources as Larossi Abballa, knifed the 42 year old commander repeatedly in the stomach on Monday evening, outside his residence.
 
He then barricaded himself inside the house in Magnanville, a suburb some 60 km west of Paris, taking the man's 36 year old partner and their three-year-old son hostage.
 
Police commandos shot Abballa dead when they stormed the house after negotiations failed but unfortunately, the woman was already dead, also killed with a knife, according to sources. Their son is not injured but in a state of shock.
 
French President Francois Hollande said the killings were “undeniably a terrorist act” and that the terrorist threat in France was very high.
 
The organization Islamic State already claimed the attack: “God has enabled one of the caliphate's soldiers in city of Les Mureaux near Paris to stab to death the deputy police chief and his wife” an official broadcast on its Albayan Radio said.
 
If that information is confirmed, it would be the first ISIS terrorist strike in France after the attacks in November during which some 130 people were killed. France has been under a state of emergency since then and it is currently on high security alert for the Euro 2016, which began last Friday.