A French prosecutor revealed on Tuesday that the Muslim terrorist who on Friday beheaded his boss and tried to blow up a gas factory in France's Lyon had links to the Islamic State (ISIS) terrorist group.
The attack by Yassin Salhi "last Friday corresponded very precisely to the orders of (ISIS)," said Paris chief prosecutor Francois Molins according to AFP.
Molins noted that the attack, aside from being motivated by hatred for his boss, "resembled a martyr operation" with the goal of conducting an Islamist terror attack.
Salhi last Friday rammed his van into the US-owned Air Products factory near Lyon in an attempt to blow up the whole building. He was overpowered by a firefighter as he was trying to prize open a bottle of acetone in an apparent suicidal bid to destroy the factory.
Police then made the grisly discovery of the severed head of Salhi's boss, 54-year-old Herve Cornara, lashed to the gates of the factory near two flags on which were written the Muslim profession of faith.
Molins announced Salhi's ISIS ties following an initial 96-hour custody of the terrorist.
He said that evidence gathered in investigations since the arrest, during which it became clear Salhi was in contact with an Islamist terrorist in Syria, justified a terrorism inquiry and not just murder charges.
Salhi took a gruesome "selfie" picture with the severed head of his boss and sent it via WhatsApp to a number in Canada, but it was revealed the picture was relayed to terrorists in Syria.