TREBES (France)
• Three people were killed in a terrorist attack in France yesterday when a gunman held up a car, opened fire on police and then took hostages in a supermarket, screaming "Allahu Akbar".

The gunman first hijacked a car, killing one person and wounding another. He then fired on police officers in Carcassonne, wounding an officer in the shoulder before heading to Trebes about 8km to the east, where two more people were killed at the Super-U supermarket.

Police later stormed the supermarket in the small south-western town of Trebes. Interior Minister Gerard Collomb later said on Twitter that the attacker had been killed. Two police officers were hurt in the operation, a source said.

Mr Collomb named the gunman, who was killed by police, as 26-year-old Redouane Lakdim, a small-time drug dealer.

Security sources had said the gunman was believed to be a Moroccan who was on a watch list of suspected extremists, but Mr Collomb did not confirm his nationality.

A source at the Interior Ministry said that while two people had died so far during the hostage-taking, the number of fatalities could go up.

"It is a provisional assessment as it could unfortunately get worse. Three people are wounded, including one of them seriously," the source said.

French President Emmanuel Macron said security forces were securing the area.

Speaking at a news conference in Brussels, where he was attending a European Union summit meeting, Mr Macron said: "We believe that it is indeed a terror attack."

BFM TV station reported that the hostage-taker had claimed allegiance to the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and that he had demanded the release of Salah Abdeslam - the prime surviving suspect in the ISIS attacks that killed 130 people in Paris in 2015.

A 45-year-old lieutenant-colonel swapped himself in exchange for one of the hostages, a source close to the investigation said later, confirming information first published by Le Figaro newspaper.

The officer was one of the policemen injured during the operation to kill the gunman.

Mr Eric Menassi, the mayor of Trebes, told LCI TV that the man had entered the shop in Trebes screaming "Allahu Akbar (God is greatest), I'll kill you all".

Ms Carole (only first name given), who was shopping at the supermarket, described how people had taken refuge in a cold room.

"A man shouted and fired several times. I saw a cold room door, I asked people to come and take shelter," she told Franceinfo radio. "There were 10 of us, and we stayed for an hour. There were more gunshots and we went out the back door."

For the French authorities, what was particularly alarming about the events yesterday was that the area targeted was quiet and provincial, far from the big cities that have typically attracted terrorist violence.

"This can strike no matter where, no matter when, no matter how," said police union official Yves Lefebvre, speaking on Europe 1 radio.

The EU offers its full support to the French people, European Commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker said.

More than 240 people have been killed in France since 2015 in attacks by assailants who pledged allegiance to, or were inspired by, ISIS.</s>Trebes, France (AP) — A gun-wielding extremist went on a rampage Friday in a quiet corner of southern France, killing three people as he hijacked a car, opened fire on police and took hostages in a supermarket, where panicked shoppers hid in a meat locker or ran through the aisles.

After an hours-long standoff, the 25-year-old attacker was slain as elite police forces stormed the market. They were aided by a heroic police officer who had offered himself up in a hostage swap and suffered life-threatening wounds as a result — one of 16 people injured in the day’s violence.

The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the attack near Carcassonne, a medieval city beloved by tourists, and the town of Trebes. It was the deadliest attack in France since Emmanuel Macron became president last May.

The officer who volunteered to take the place a female hostage was identified as Col. Arnaud Beltrame. He managed to surreptitiously leave his cellphone on so that police outside could hear what was going on inside the supermarket. Officials said once they heard shots inside the market they decided to storm it.

A police official who was not authorized to be publicly identified confirmed the officer’s identity to The Associated Press.

Macron said investigators will focus on establishing how the gunman, identified by prosecutors as Moroccan-born Redouane Lakdim, got his weapon, and how he became radicalized.

On Friday night, authorities searched a vehicle and a building in central Carcassonne.

Lakdim was known to police for petty crime and drug-dealing. But he was also under surveillance and since 2014 was on the so-called “Fiche S” list, a government register of individuals suspected of being radicalized but who have yet to perform acts of terrorism.

Despite this, Paris prosecutor Francois Molins there was “no warning sign” that Lakdim would carry out an extremist attack.

A woman close to Lakdim was taken into custody over alleged links with a terrorist enterprise, Molins said. He did not identify her.

The four-hour drama began at 10:13 a.m. when Lakdim hijacked a car near Carcassonne, killing one person in the car and wounding the other, the prosecutor said.

Lakdim then fired six shots at police officers who were on their way back from jogging near Carcassonne, said Yves Lefebvre, secretary general of SGP Police-FO police union. The police were wearing athletic clothes with police insignia. One officer was hit in the shoulder, but the injury was not serious, Lefebvre said.

Lakdim then went to a Super U supermarket in nearby Trebes, 60 miles (100 kilometers) southeast of Toulouse, shooting and killing two people in the market and taking an unknown number of hostages. Special police units converged on the scene while authorities blocked roads and urged residents to stay away.

He shouted “Allahu akbar! (God is great)” and said he was a “soldier of the Islamic State” as he entered the Super U, where about 50 people were inside, Molins said.

“We heard an explosion — well, several explosions,” shopper Christian Guibbert told reporters. “I went to see what was happening and I saw a man lying on the floor and another person, very agitated, who had a gun in one hand and a knife in the other.”

Guibbert said he led his wife and sister-in-law and nearby customers into the meat locker. Then he went back to see where the assailant was and called police to describe the situation.

“At that moment, he (the gunman) ran after me. Of course I left, I lost him and when I turned around he wasn’t there anymore. I took an emergency door and saw the police arrive,” Guibbert said.

Another witness, an employee of the supermarket’s butcher department identified only by his first name, Jacky, told Europe 1 radio he “heard people shouting and a big ‘boom.'”

“It was a gunshot,” he said. “Then a second gunshot. After that, my colleagues came toward me saying: ‘Come on Jacky, we need to leave! There’s someone who’s firing shots, he’s shouting “Allahu akbar,” and he’s shot people and he’s shooting at everything.'”

He said they left using an emergency exit behind the butcher’s stall and they ran across the courtyard.

“We also helped people get out,” he said.

During the standoff, Lakdim requested the release of Salah Abdeslam, the sole surviving assailant of the Nov. 13, 2015, attacks in Paris that left 130 people dead. The interior minister suggested, however, that Abdeslam’s release wasn’t a key motive for the attack.

The IS-linked Aamaq news agency said the attacker was responding to the group’s calls to target countries in the U.S.-led coalition carrying out airstrikes against IS militants in Syria and Iraq since 2014. France has been repeatedly targeted because of its participation.

Both Interior Minister Gerard Collomb and Molins praised Beltrame, who Molins said “at the risk of his life took the choice to take the place of the hostages.”

The gunman shot Beltrame several times after threatening to blow up the supermarket if police entered, Molins added.

BFM television said Beltrame recently took part in a training exercise simulating a terrorist attack.

As the supermarket standoff reached a crescendo about 2:20 p.m., police heard gunshots inside the building and decided that elite forces had to storm it. Lakdim was killed and two other officers were wounded during the assault, Collomb said.

“He acted alone, there was no one else but him,” he added.

Macron rushed back from an EU summit in Brussels to Paris, where counterterrorism investigators took over the investigation. France has been on high alert since a series of extremist attacks in 2015 and 2016 that killed more than 200 people.

While France hasn’t had an attack in several months, “the threat remains high,” Macron said, describing ongoing risks from “several individuals who radicalized themselves.”

Macron pushed through a tough counterterrorism law last year that gives police extra powers to conduct searches and hold people under house arrest.

In Brussels, German Chancellor Angela Merkel appeared with Macron and said, “When it comes to terrorist threats, we stand by France.”

Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo said the Eiffel Tower would turn its lights off at midnight in tribute to the victims.

At the national stadium outside Paris, 80,000 soccer fans and the national teams of France and Colombia observed a minute of silence Friday night to honor those killed in the attacks earlier in the day. Poignantly, the stadium itself was the site of bloodshed in the deadly Paris attacks in 2015.</s>Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Police have surrounded the French supermarket, as the BBC's Lucy Williamson reports

A gunman is believed to have killed at least two people during a hostage-taking at a supermarket in Trèbes, southern France.

An operation involving elite police is continuing at the Super U shop, where others were wounded.

Reports say the gunman, who remains in the supermarket, pledged allegiance to the Islamic State group.

Earlier, a policeman was shot and wounded while jogging with colleagues in Carcassonne, a 15-minute drive away.

He was shot in the shoulder by the same suspect involved in the supermarket hostage-taking but is not critically injured, Yves Lefebvre, secretary-general of the SGP Police-FO union told the Associated Press.

Trèbes Mayor Eric Menassi told BFM TV that the gunman was now alone in the shop with one police officer, after other hostages were freed.

The suspect is said to be heavily armed and asking for the release of Salah Abdeslam, the most important surviving suspect in the 13 November 2015 Paris attacks, which killed 130 people.

Reports say the suspect is known to French intelligence services and that his mother is at the scene.

A security source told French news agency AFP that most employees and customers at the supermarket "managed to flee".

Prime Minister Édouard Philippe said the situation was "serious" and that all signs pointed towards a "terrorist act".

Image copyright La vie a Trèbes/Reuters

Hundreds of police officers have been deployed to the area, and the vicinity has been cordoned off.

Counter-terrorism prosecutors are leading the investigation but few details have been provided.

France has been hit with several deadly jihadist attacks since 2015 and has been on high alert since. A state of emergency put in place after the 2015 attacks in Paris was lifted in October.

In February, Salah Abdeslam went on trial in Belgium over a shootout in Brussels that led to his capture months after the Paris attacks. He is not expected to go on trial in France until 2020 at the earliest.

Major terror attacks in France</s>TREBES, France >> A gun-wielding extremist went on a rampage Friday in a quiet corner of southern France, killing three people as he hijacked a car, opened fire on police and took hostages in a supermarket, where panicked shoppers hid in a meat locker or ran through the aisles.

After an hours-long standoff, the 25-year-old attacker was slain as elite police forces stormed the market. They were aided by a heroic police officer who had offered himself up in a hostage swap and suffered life-threatening wounds as a result — one of 16 people injured in the day’s violence.

The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the attack near Carcassonne, a medieval city beloved by tourists, and the town of Trebes. It was the deadliest attack in France since Emmanuel Macron became president last May.

The officer who volunteered to take the place a female hostage was identified as Col. Arnaud Beltrame. He managed to surreptitiously leave his cellphone on so that police outside could hear what was going on inside the supermarket. Officials said once they heard shots inside the market they decided to storm it.

A police official who was not authorized to be publicly identified confirmed the officer’s identity to The Associated Press.

Macron said investigators will focus on establishing how the gunman, identified by prosecutors as Moroccan-born Redouane Lakdim, got his weapon, and how he became radicalized.

On Friday night, authorities searched a vehicle and a building in central Carcassonne.

Lakdim was known to police for petty crime and drug-dealing. But he was also under surveillance and since 2014 was on the so-called “Fiche S” list, a government register of individuals suspected of being radicalized but who have yet to perform acts of terrorism.

Despite this, Paris prosecutor Francois Molins there was “no warning sign” that Lakdim would carry out an extremist attack.

A woman close to Lakdim was taken into custody over alleged links with a terrorist enterprise, Molins said. He did not identify her.

The four-hour drama began at 10:13 a.m. when Lakdim hijacked a car near Carcassonne, killing one person in the car and wounding the other, the prosecutor said.

Lakdim then fired six shots at police officers who were on their way back from jogging near Carcassonne, said Yves Lefebvre, secretary general of SGP Police-FO police union. The police were wearing athletic clothes with police insignia. One officer was hit in the shoulder, but the injury was not serious, Lefebvre said.

Lakdim then went to a Super U supermarket in nearby Trebes, 60 miles (100 kilometers) southeast of Toulouse, shooting and killing two people in the market and taking an unknown number of hostages. Special police units converged on the scene while authorities blocked roads and urged residents to stay away.

He shouted “Allahu akbar! (God is great)” and said he was a “soldier of the Islamic State” as he entered the Super U, where about 50 people were inside, Molins said.

“We heard an explosion — well, several explosions,” shopper Christian Guibbert told reporters. “I went to see what was happening and I saw a man lying on the floor and another person, very agitated, who had a gun in one hand and a knife in the other.”

Guibbert said he led his wife and sister-in-law and nearby customers into the meat locker. Then he went back to see where the assailant was and called police to describe the situation.

“At that moment, he (the gunman) ran after me. Of course I left, I lost him and when I turned around he wasn’t there anymore. I took an emergency door and saw the police arrive,” Guibbert said.

Another witness, an employee of the supermarket’s butcher department identified only by his first name, Jacky, told Europe 1 radio he “heard people shouting and a big ‘boom.’”

“It was a gunshot,” he said. “Then a second gunshot. After that, my colleagues came toward me saying: ‘Come on Jacky, we need to leave! There’s someone who’s firing shots, he’s shouting “Allahu akbar,” and he’s shot people and he’s shooting at everything.’”

He said they left using an emergency exit behind the butcher’s stall and they ran across the courtyard.

“We also helped people get out,” he said.

During the standoff, Lakdim requested the release of Salah Abdeslam, the sole surviving assailant of the Nov. 13, 2015, attacks in Paris that left 130 people dead. The interior minister suggested, however, that Abdeslam’s release wasn’t a key motive for the attack.

The IS-linked Aamaq news agency said the attacker was responding to the group’s calls to target countries in the U.S.-led coalition carrying out airstrikes against IS militants in Syria and Iraq since 2014. France has been repeatedly targeted because of its participation.

Both Interior Minister Gerard Collomb and Molins praised Beltrame, who Molins said “at the risk of his life took the choice to take the place of the hostages.”

The gunman shot Beltrame several times after threatening to blow up the supermarket if police entered, Molins added.

BFM television said Beltrame recently took part in a training exercise simulating a terrorist attack.

As the supermarket standoff reached a crescendo about 2:20 p.m., police heard gunshots inside the building and decided that elite forces had to storm it. Lakdim was killed and two other officers were wounded during the assault, Collomb said.

“He acted alone, there was no one else but him,” he added.

Macron rushed back from an EU summit in Brussels to Paris, where counterterrorism investigators took over the investigation. France has been on high alert since a series of extremist attacks in 2015 and 2016 that killed more than 200 people.

While France hasn’t had an attack in several months, “the threat remains high,” Macron said, describing ongoing risks from “several individuals who radicalized themselves.”

Macron pushed through a tough counterterrorism law last year that gives police extra powers to conduct searches and hold people under house arrest.

In Brussels, German Chancellor Angela Merkel appeared with Macron and said, “When it comes to terrorist threats, we stand by France.”

Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo said the Eiffel Tower would turn its lights off at midnight in tribute to the victims.

At the national stadium outside Paris, 80,000 soccer fans and the national teams of France and Colombia observed a minute of silence Friday night to honor those killed in the attacks earlier in the day. Poignantly, the stadium itself was the site of bloodshed in the deadly Paris attacks in 2015.

Adamson and Petrequin reported from Paris. Sylvie Corbet, Angela Charlton and Jerome Pugmire in Paris contributed.</s>(CNN) A French police officer is fighting for his life after shooting a gunman who went on a deadly rampage in southern France, authorities said Friday.

The gunman killed three people and wounded 16 others when he stole a car, fired at police officers and took hostages in a supermarket in what authorities are treating as a terrorist attack.

Interior Minister Gérard Collomb said the officer, a lieutenant colonel with the National Police, offered to exchange himself for one of the female hostages being held inside the Super U supermarket in Trèbes.

When the officer went inside the supermarket, shots were fired. The lieutenant colonel had his phone on, so police could hear his interactions with the gunman, Collomb said. As soon as they heard gunfire, police went in.

The gunman was killed and the officer, identified by a source close to the investigation as Arnaud Beltrame, was seriously wounded.

The Interior Ministry identified the gunman as 26-year-old Redouane Lakdim, who was known to authorities for minor crimes including drug offenses, Collomb said.

An investigation has been opened into murder and attempted murder "in connection with a terrorist in Trèbes," the French prosecutor's office told CNN.

Police have taken into custody a woman who was "very close" to Lakdim and "shared his life," prosecutor François Molins told reporters at a news conference in Carcassonne.

Police respond to the hostage situation Friday in the southern French town of Trèbes.

"Our country has suffered an Islamist terrorist attack," President Emmanuel Macron told reporters. "We've paid the price of the danger of the terrorist threat in blood for several years.

"I want to state my absolute determination to the nation to lead this fight."

The ISIS-affiliated Amaq News Agency said that the gunman was a "soldier" of the militant group and that he had responded to its call to attack coalition countries, a reference to the U.S.-led coalition fighting ISIS in Syria and Iraq. Amaq offered no evidence ISIS had any contact with the attacker.

"This attack has been claimed by ISIS, and it is currently being analyzed," Macron said.

A local prosecutor said the attack appeared to be "ISIS-inspired," CNN affiliate BFM TV reported. Witnesses said the man shouted, "I am a Daesh soldier," using another name for ISIS.

A BFM TV reporter at the scene said the attacker claimed to be an ISIS soldier and demanded the release of Salah Abdeslam , the suspected mastermind of the November 2015 Paris attacks

CNN could not independently confirm the gunman made the demand. Abdeslam is on trial in Belgium.

France has faced a string of terrorist attacks in recent years, including the Paris attacks and other smaller-scale assaults. The country remained under a state of emergency for about two years after the Paris attacks. It was lifted late last year.

How the rampage began

The violence unfolded when the attacker stole a car, killing one person in the vehicle and gravely wounding another, said Collomb, the interior minister.

The gunman then shot at four National Police officers who were jogging in Carcassonne. The driver tried to run the officers down. One of them was wounded, but he is not in serious condition.

The gunman proceeded to the Super U market. He entered the market, firing his weapon and killing two people. He took several others hostage.

Police found the car, and SWAT teams surrounded the market.

Collomb said a National Police lieutenant colonel shot the gunman after offering himself for at least one of the hostages.

The order of the shots was unclear, Collomb said. Police raided the store after hearing gunshots.

Two others were wounded at the market, an Interior Ministry spokesman said.

"People were absolutely calm before and never thought that there could be an attack in a town like this," Collomb told reporters, adding that the risk of terrorism in France remained "very high."

A Portuguese citizen was among the wounded, a spokesman for Portugal's Foreign Ministry told CNN.

Madeline Fuhrman, a witness, said that Carcassonne had gone quiet after the attack.

"It's totally deserted now. Absolutely every shop is closed. There's not a soul in sight," she said.

A supermarket employee who fled as shots were fired told BFM that he and about 50 others had been on lockdown in a car park.

French police and firefighters secure parts of Trèbes on Friday.

Macron hails heroic actions of officer

Macron, who was in Belgium for a summit of European Union leaders, returned to France and spoke to reporters after a crisis meeting at the Interior Ministry.

French police block access to Trèbes as they respond to the hostage situation Friday.

The French leader hailed law enforcement's response.

"The forces of order intervened with remarkable speed, both to contain the individual who hid away with his hostages, to help one of the victims who was still alive who he had left in the surrounding area," Macron said.

He singled out the officer who volunteered to be traded for a hostage and saluted his bravery.

"He has saved lives, and done his role and his country proud. He is currently fighting for his life, and all our thoughts are with him and his family," Macron said.

Macron said the investigation should answer several questions -- when and how the gunman was radicalized and where he got a weapon.

He said French soldiers overseas risk their lives "to reduce this threat."

CORRECTION: This story has been updated to correct the spelling of the interior minister's name and to correct the location of witness Madeline Fuhrman.</s>Gunman Killed By Police After Killing 3, Injuring 16 In Southern France

French authorities say a man who took hostages in a supermarket in southern France, killed three people and wounded 16 others is now dead.</s>French authorities say a police operation is taking place in a small town in southern France after a police officer was shot and wounded.

A suspect has been surrounded at a supermarket in the town of Trebes, south of Toulouse, and might have taken hostages, national police said.

The French Interior Ministry said on its Twitter account Friday that police and rescue operations are the priority.

Authorities in the Aude region are warning people to avoid the area around the supermarket.</s>At least one person is dead after a gunman claiming allegiance to ISIS shot at police officers and took hostages at a supermarket in the south of France, according to reports.

There are reports two people have been killed.

The suspect was heard shouting ‘Vengeance for Syria!’ before launching the rampage in Trebes, close to Carcassonne, in the Aube department.

The drama unfolded shortly after 11am and police have now surrounded a branch of Super U in the town, where a butcher was reportedly killed.

A riot police officer who was out for a jog was shot and wounded before about eight hostages were taken at the shop.</s>A man killed two people and wounded others in a supermarket in the town of Trebes in southern France, according to the French interior minister. Investigators believe he had also hijacked a car after leaving the nearby city of Carcassonne, killing one person in the vehicle.

A police union official told The Associated Press that the suspect was shot to death when police raided the market.

Reuters reports that Mayor Eric Menassi told LCI TV that the man had entered the grocery yelling, "Allahu Akbar, I'll kill you all."

Interior Minister Gérard Collomb said that a police officer offered himself in a hostage swap, and then managed to leave his cell phone on after he entered the supermarket and stayed with the suspect — which allowed for contact with officers outside, the AP reports. The interior minister praised the officer's heroism and said he had been seriously injured, though he did not say how or when the injury had occurred.

The attack may be linked to an earlier incident in Carcassonne. Prime Minister Édouard Philippe said that the suspect earlier fired at police officers on Friday morning, The New York Times reports. The officers were returning from jogging and were wearing athletic clothing with police insignia, the AP reports. One of the officers was shot in the shoulder but the injury is not life-threatening, a police spokesman told the news service.

Speaking at a press conference during an EU Summit in Brussels, French President Emmanuel Macron said that the incident appears to be a terror attack, after "what was first an attack against police officers."

Collomb identified the suspect as 26-year-old Redouane Lakdim, describing him as a petty criminal from Carcassonne. Collomb said the suspect had radicalized and was under police surveillance, according to the AP.

"Collomb said Lakdim in the standoff requested the release of the sole surviving assailant of Nov. 13, 2015, attacks in Paris that left 130 people dead," the AP reports.

Police officers, soldiers, security officers have been increasingly targeted in terrorist attacks in France, as Jake Cigainero reports for NPR:



Trebes is a usually sleepy town of about 5,500 in the Pyrenees near the Spanish border.

This is a breaking news story. As often happens in situations like these, some information reported early may turn out to be inaccurate. We'll move quickly to correct the record and we'll only point to the best information we have at the time.</s>PARIS (AP) — French authorities say a police operation is taking place in a small town in southern France after a police officer was shot and wounded.

A suspect has been surrounded at a supermarket in the town of Trebes, south of Toulouse, and might have taken hostages, national police said.

The French Interior Ministry said on its Twitter account Friday that police and rescue operations are the priority.

Authorities in the Aude region are warning people to avoid the area around the supermarket.

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Four people are killed and 16 wounded when an extremist takes hostages in Trèbes, France. The suspect is killed by police.