A French prosecutor confirmed on Tuesday that the man who beheaded his boss and tried to blow up a gas factory had a “terrorist motive” and links to the Islamic State group in Syria. Yassin Salhi confessed to the crime but has maintained it was purely for personal reasons and had nothing to do with his religious beliefs, even though it bore all the hallmarks of a jehadist act. “The one does not exclude the other and the choice to kill someone against whom he held a grudge does not exclude a terrorist motive,” said Paris chief prosecutor Francois Molins. Molins pointed to several facts uncovered during the investigation, including links between Salhi and a known French jehadist in Syria, who asked permission from the ISIS group to publish gruesome photos from the attack.