French beheading selfie 'sent to Syria'

The gruesome "selfie" taken by a man who has confessed to beheading his boss during an attack on a gas factory in France was sent to Syria, sources close to the investigation said Sunday.

The news emerged as Yassin Salhi, 35, was being transferred from France's second city of Lyon to Paris for questioning by specialised anti-terrorist police.

Salhi confessed to the crime earlier Sunday and has also given "details about the circumstances" surrounding the killing, according to sources close to the investigation.

He left the police headquarters in Lyon in a van escorted by nine unmarked cars en route to the capital.

The convoy stopped briefly at Salhi's house to pick up his passport, where several masked officers bundled him into his apartment, covering his face with a white cloth and fitting him with a bulletproof vest.

Investigators discovered Saturday that the married father-of-three had sent a photo of himself and the severed head via the WhatsApp messaging service to a number in Canada.

But officials warned the Canadian number might be a relay number and the intended recipient could be anywhere in the world.

After several hours of silence, Salhi has begun to open up to investigators about the assault, which came six months after 17 were killed in Islamist attacks in Paris that began with the Charlie Hebdo massacre.

On Friday morning, Salhi rammed his van into the US-owned Air Products factory near France's second city of Lyon in what President Francois Hollande said was a "terrorist" attack designed to blow up the whole building.

He was overpowered by a firefighter as he was trying to prise 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.

An autopsy on the victim has proved inconclusive, with experts unable to determine whether he was killed before being beheaded or decapitated alive.

Prime Minister Manuel Valls repeated that the world was engaged in a "war against terrorism".

"We cannot lose this war because it's fundamentally a war of civilisation. It's our society, our civilisation that we are defending," Valls told iTELE rolling news channel.

France is facing "a major terrorist threat" which needs to be fought "over the long-term", warned the prime minister.

It's not a question of whether there will be another attack, but "when" and "where", stressed Valls.

Sources close to the investigation said Salhi was radicalised more than a decade ago after contact with Muslim convert Frederic Jean Salvi - known as "Ali" - who is suspected of preparing attacks in Indonesia with al-Qaeda militants.

Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said Friday Salhi had been investigated for links to radical Salafists in Lyon, but was not known to have participated in terrorist activities and did not have a criminal record.

The French probe is naturally focusing on Syria, where hundreds of people from France have gone to join the Islamic State (IS) group.

Anti-terrorist authorities have identified 473 people who have left France to fight in Iraq or Syria and Valls said 1,800 people in France were "linked" in some way to the extremist cause.

Europe has for months been bracing for so-called "lone wolf" attacks by supporters of Islamic State, which has urged its followers to strike wherever they can.

France, which has the highest Muslim population in Europe, last week passed a controversial new spying law granting sweeping powers to snoop on citizens.