(AhlulBayt News Agency) - French police have killed a gunman who shot dead at least three people and injured two others in a hostage-taking and shooting spree in southwest France, security sources said.
A policeman involved in the freeing of all of the hostages at the Super U supermarket in the town of Trebes was injured during the operation to kill the gunman, the source added, asking not to be named.
Three people were killed in southwestern France on Friday when a gunman held up a car, opened fire on police and then took hostages in a supermarket.
A source at the Interior Ministry said two had died at the hostage-taking in the small town of Trebes. "It is a provisional assessment as it could unfortunately get worse. Three people are wounded, including one of them seriously," the source said.
Later, a police union official said the attacker had also killed one person with bullet in the head in the nearby town of Carcassonne before the hostage-taking.
Prime Minister Edouard Philippe said the incident appeared to be a terrorist act.
Eric Menassi, the mayor of Trebes, told BFM TV that the hostage-taker was now alone with one police officer in the supermarket and all other hostages were free.
The station reported that the hostage-taker has claimed allegiance to ISIS terrorists and that he has 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.
