海角大神

France鈥檚 chief public prosecutor announced Tuesday that terrorism charges will be investigated in the case of a French national suspected of attacking a gas plant in the southern city of Lyon last week after first beheading his boss.聽

Yassin Salhi, a driver for a transport company, was arrested at the plant Friday allegedly after attempting to ram his van into gas canisters at the plant, apparently hoping to blow up the building. 聽

The morning of the attack on the US-owned gas facility Mr. Salhi allegedly sought out and attacked his boss, knocked him unconscious, then later beheaded him and sent a photo to a friend in Syria, according to French police.

Francois Molins, the chief prosecutor, said the attack and the beheading were Islamic State trademarks and said that the photos Salhi sent were to another French national suspected of having joined IS.聽

Through his lawyer Salhi denies he was motivated by terrorism, according to the Associated Press, and said he does not remember the beheading or sending any photos.

Mr. Molins countered that, "According to him [Salhi] his motive was only personal and not terrorist. One does not exclude the other.... He decapitated his victim, he hung the head on a chain, and he wanted to get the maximum publicity possible."

France鈥檚 pursuit of the terror charge category is the second since the high-profile Paris shootings at Charlie Hebdo magazine and at a kosher market. It highlights what is often described as a聽growing terror problem in France, where there has been a spike in the number of young men traveling for jihad in the Middle East.

In April, Prime Minister Manuel Valls said at least five domestic attacks had been聽thwarted since the beginning of the year.

On Sunday, Mr. Valls said that the world was engaged in a war against terrorism: 聽鈥淲e cannot lose this war because it鈥檚 fundamentally a war of civilization. It鈥檚 our society, our civilization that we are defending.鈥�

Valls noted that the problem was not only a French one, adding that 5,000 European citizens were fighting alongside terror groups in conflicts across the world, and that by the end of this year there could be 10,000 Europeans fighting for IS. France, with a long history of migrants from the Middle East and North Africa, has a larger pool of fighters ready to travel to Syria and Iraq where IS is based.聽

There have been efforts in France to prevent the outflow and recruitment of fighters, as the Monitor reported in February: