PARIS (AP) — The latest on the attack in southeastern France (all times local):
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7:35 p.m.
French prosecutor says four people are in custody in an investigation into a beheading and an explosion at a gas factory in southeastern France and police are still searching buildings for evidence.
Paris Prosecutor Francois Molins said Friday the attacker was known to factory personnel because he came in regularly for deliveries. The attacker entered the factory grounds in southeast France in a utility truck, then crashed the vehicle into a hangar at the site, prompting an explosion.
Molins says a knife and a decapitated body were found near the crashed truck and the body’s head was found hanging on a gate. The head was surrounded by two flags carrying Islamic declarations.
Molins said the attacker, his wife, sister and another suspect are in custody. He said investigators are trying to determine whether there are accomplices.
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7:15 p.m.
The international police agency Interpol is offering its investigative help to Tunisia, France, Kuwait and Somalia after separate terrorist attacks that have killed more than 80 people.
Interpol said its Lyon, France, headquarters is in close contact with authorities in the four nations’ capitals.
Interpol Secretary-General Juergen Stock said the four attacks Friday “show the truly global dimension to current terrorist threats.”
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6:50 p.m.
The United Nations, the United States and other countries around the world are condemning the attack on a U.S. gas factory in France as well as attacks in Tunisia and Kuwait.
The French attack Friday came on the same day as a gunman mowed down scores of tourists on a beach in Tunisia and a suicide bomber killed over two dozen worshippers at a Shiite mosque in Kuwait.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said those “responsible for such appalling acts of violence must be swiftly brought to justice” and Interpol offered its help to all three nations.
In Washington, Pentagon spokesman Col. Steve Warren said it was too soon to tell whether the three attacks were the work of Islamic State extremists but added “we unequivocally condemn these terrorist attacks.”
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5 p.m.
French President Francois Hollande says he is raising the security alert to the highest level for three days in the southeastern region where a suspect attacked an American gas factory.
Hollande spoke after a high-level security meeting Friday afternoon, hours after the attack on the factory left two people wounded. In addition, a local businessman was found decapitated at the factory site, along with banners carrying Arabic inscriptions.
French police say they have the main suspect in custody, along with the suspect’s wife and others. Hollande says the key question is to determine whether there were any accomplices.
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4:50 p.m.
Three French officials say the decapitated victim found in an attack on an American gas factory in France was the suspect’s employer.
The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation was ongoing, said the victim was believed to have died before the suspect got a car through the factory’s gates and rammed into gas canisters Friday morning. That triggered an explosion that officials say injured two people.
A French police official says the man in custody, Yassine Salhi, is a resident in his 30s of the Lyon suburb of Saint-Priest. Police have not named his employer but say he is the head of a local transportation company.
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4:35 p.m.
A French police intelligence official tells The Associated Press that the man detained in connection with an attack on an American gas factory in France has been identified.
He says the man in custody, Yassine Salhi, is a resident in his 30s of the Lyon suburb of Saint-Priest.
Security officials picked up two people from Salhi’s apartment Friday afternoon. Another security official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because she was not authorized to speak with the media, said one of them was Salhi’s wife.
— Jamey Keaten and Lori Hinnant in Paris.
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4:10 p.m.
Live television from France has shown two people — a woman and another person whose head was covered — being led away by French security forces from the detained suspect’s apartment building in Saint Priest, a suburb of Lyon.
France’s top security official says the suspect himself was detained earlier Friday after he rammed a car into gas canisters at an American gas factory in southeastern France, touching off an explosion that injured two people.
A security official says the suspect’s wife was among those taken into custody Friday afternoon.
Another security official said the suspect apparently miscalculated about how explosive the chemicals he smashed into would be. French President Francois Hollande says a major explosion appeared to be the goal. Both spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.
— Lori Hinnant reported from in Paris.
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2:45 p.m.
A French security official says the man whose severed head was found hanging at the gate of an American gas factory that was attacked in France has been identified as a local businessman.
A car rammed the factory gate Friday in southeastern France and plowed into gas canisters, touching off an explosion. A decapitated body and flags with Arabic writing were found at the entrance.
The security official, who was not authorized to speak to the media and requested anonymity, said the victim was the head of a local transportation company and was believed to have been killed before the explosion. His name was not released.
Authorities had said his body was found near the site of the attack.
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2:15 p.m.
Air Products says all its employees are accounted for after an attack on a factory in southeastern France. It has not confirmed whether its staff were among the two people reported injured and one dead. The company says in a statement that all employees have been evacuated from the site, which is secure.
It says “our crisis and emergency response teams have been activated and are working closely with all relevant authorities.”
Air Products, which is based in the U.S., makes gases used by a wide range of industries, including food production, medicine and the oil and gas. It has more than 20,000 employees in 50 countries, mostly in the Americas, Europe and Asia.
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This item has been corrected to show that the attack was in southeastern France, not southwestern France.
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1:45 p.m.
French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve says multiple people are in custody after an attack on a gas factory that left one person dead.
A severed head was posted at the factory’s entrance and Cazeneuve said authorities are still trying to identify the victim.
“People who could have participated in this abject crime are in custody after having been arrested,” he told journalists.
The attack began when a car crashed the gate and plowed into gas canisters, touching off an explosion at the factory near Lyon on Friday morning.
Cazeneuve said the suspect was believed to be from the area and had been flagged in 2006 for ties to Islamic extremists, but surveillance was dropped in 2008.
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1:30 p.m.
France’s top security official says a man arrested in the attack at a gas factory in southeastern France was known to intelligence services for possible ties to Islamic extremists but had no arrest record.
Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve says the investigation has just begun and cautioned against jumping to conclusions.
The suspect had been flagged as an extremist in 2006 and then police monitoring dropped off two years later, according to Cazeneuve.
A car crashed the gate and plowed into gas canisters, touching off an explosion, at the factory near Lyon on Friday morning. The decapitated body of a person was found at the scene.
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1 p.m.
France’s president says a suspect in what he called a “terrorist” attack at a gas factory in southeastern France has been arrested and identified.
Francois Hollande, speaking in Brussels, said one person was killed and two wounded in the attack, which began shortly before 10 a.m. Friday when a car crashed the gate and plowed into gas canisters, touching off an explosion.
Hollande said one suspect has been arrested and indicated that a second attacker might have been involved.
He was returning to France and called a high level defense council meeting for Friday afternoon.
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12:30 p.m.
A security official says a decapitated head was found posted on the gate at the entry to the gas factory that came under attack Friday in southeastern France.
The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to release details to the media, said the torso was found near the site of the explosion but that the victim was not decapitated by the blast.
Two flags, one white and one black and both with Arabic inscriptions, were found at the scene.
The official said police were searching for anyone else possibly involved in the attack. France’s interior minister, Bernard Cazeneuve, has arrived at the scene.
— By Lori Hinnant
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11:55 a.m.
French authorities have opened a terrorism investigation after an attack and explosion at a gas factory that left one person decapitated and several wounded.
Banners with Arabic inscriptions were found near the body, an official said.
France’s anti-terrorism prosecutor swiftly opened an investigation.
Details of the attack were sketchy but two French officials said it began midmorning in the Isere region when two men crashed a car into the entrance of the factory and into gas canisters, touching off the explosion. One attacker was arrested, they said.
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11:30 a.m.
A French security official says an attack and explosion at a gas factory in southeastern France has left one person dead.
The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because she wasn’t authorized to talk to the news media, said the dead person was found decapitated outside the entrance to the factory.
France’s top security official was rushing to the scene. The official said two attackers arrived in a car, bearing banners written in Arabic, and set off an explosion. One of the attackers was arrested.
— By Lori Hinnant
