An armed man reportedly yelling “Allahu Akbar” went on a rampage Friday in southern France, killing three people and taking hostages in an hours-long standoff inside a supermarket.
Police said the man, identified as Redouane Lakdim, 26, carjacked a vehicle, shot at police and barricaded himself inside a Super U supermarket in Trebes before officers stormed in, fatally shooting him.
Officials said among the 16 people injured in the rampage was a French police officer who offered himself up in a hostage swap and gave police crucial details about what was going on inside.
The French Prime Minister said the incident “seems to be a terrorist act.”
French President Emmanuel Macron, speaking after a meeting at the emergency center at the interior ministry, said the police officer was fighting for his life. He praised the officer for offering himself up.
“He saved lives,” said Macron, who said the rampage appeared to be a terrorist attack – the first to hit France since he became leader in May.
Police have not identified the suspect or a motive for the hostage situation.
(Reuters)
The Islamic State group claimed the attack, who was known to French police for petty crime and drug dealing, was one of its “soldiers.”
The series of events appeared to begin in when Lakdim hijacked a car near the medieval city of Carcassonne on Friday morning, killing one person in the vehicle and injuring another.
The French Interior Ministry said police and rescue operations are the priority at the moment.
Yves Lefebvre, secretary general of SGP Police-FO police union, said Lakdim then fired at least six shots at a group of police officers who were returning from a jog nearby. He said the officers were wearing athletic clothes with police insignia.
One officer was shot in the shoulder, but the injury was considered non-life-threatening.
Afterwards, Lakdim went to the supermarket in Trebes, 60 miles southeast of Toulouse, where he opened fire and killing two people. He took an unknown number of hostages.
Local media reported, Lakdim reportedly yelled “Allahu Akbar” which means “God is Great” in Arabic and said “he is ready to die for Syria.”
One officer offered himself up in a hostage swap and was seriously injured. French Interior Minister Gerard Collomb said the officer managed to leave his cellphone switched on after the swamp, establishing contact with officers outside the supermarket.
Through that phone, police heard gunshots inside the building and decided that elite forces had to storm the market, killing Lakdim, Collomb said. He said two other officers were wounded during the assault.
“He acted alone, there was no one else but him,” Collomb said, speaking from Trebes.
During the standoff, Lakdim demanded the release of Salam Abdeslam, the lone survivor of an ISIS terror cell behind the deadly 2015 attacks in Paris that killed 130 people, officials said.
The interior minister said Lakdim was a petty criminal and small-time drug dealer who had been under police surveillance, but it was not clear to authorities that he was a committed radical.
“It was more of a petty criminal who at a certain moment decided to act,” he said.
Counterterrorism investigators took over the probe into Friday’s rampage. France has been on high alert since a string of Islamic extremist attacks in 2015 and 2016 that killed more than 200 people.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.