Video: Nun Led To Safety After Priest Killing

Footage has emerged showing police helping a nun to safety after she fled Islamic State (IS) killers in a Normandy church.

Moments later gunshots can be heard as French officers fired at the two IS attackers, who have appeared in a video pledging allegiance to the terror group, who had killed a priest at his altar.

The nun can be seen running to safety in the video after Adel Kermiche and Abdel-Malik Petitjean had cut Father Jacques Hamel's throat.

The priest, along with three nuns and two churchgoers, had been taken hostage by the terrorists, who were shot dead as they ran from the building shouting "Allahu Akbar".

The drama was captured on Tuesday morning by a 17-year-old who was filming it from the window of his apartment facing the church in Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray.

The footage begins by showing armed police using shields as cover making their way towards one end of the church before retreating.

The teenager named "Mathis", told Le Telegramme: "I woke up around 10am by the noise and the voices of the security forces.

"They were trying to evacuate the area because there is a school next door. At first I thought it was a robbery."

"Mathis" added: "Someone shouted. Then I heard gunshots", as the two assailants were killed.

"They then evacuated the people who were taken hostage," he said.

Petitjean, thought to be aged 20 and like 19-year-old Kermiche on France's terror watch list , was reportedly identified by an ID found at the scene of the attack.

Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said France would bolster the operational reserve of its police force after 2,500 people asked to join up in the days after 84 people died in an IS-inspired attack on Bastille Day in Nice.

He also said more of the country's 10,000-strong Operation Sentinel anti-terror forces would be deployed to areas outside Paris following the Nice attack and the killing in Normandy.