French police killed a gunman holed up in supermarket in southern France where he had taken hostages earlier on Friday, a source close to the investigation said.
“The hostage-taker is dead, the source said, adding that he was killed during a raid on the supermarket. Two officers were wounded, the source said.
Earlier three people were killed in three separate incidents which the government is treating as an act of terrorism.
The attacker was a 26-year old known for petty crimes and possession of drugs, Interior Minister Gerard Collomb on Friday, adding that he acted alone.
Collomb named the attacker as Redouane Lakdim and said he was from nearby Carcassonne, a tourist hot-spot known for its medieval city center, where the attacks started.
“He was known for petty crimes. We had monitored him and thought there was no radicalization,” Collomb said, before adding: “He was known for possession of drugs, we couldn’t have said that he was a radical that would carry out an attack.”
Le Parisien newspaper wrote that Lakdim was of Moroccan descent and was known to French DGSI intelligence services. He was active in Salafist social networks, Le Parisien wrote, without naming its sources.
He was also suspected, without any certainty, of having traveled to Syria, Le Parisien said, adding that the family flat, where he would have been living with his parents and three or four sisters, was raided by police on Friday afternoon.
“This is a small, quiet, town. Unfortunately the threat is everywhere,” Collomb told reporters in Trebes. {eoa}
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