NEW FRANCE TERROR
Avenging ISIS hostage-taker kills 3
A petty criminal who claimed allegiance to ISIS killed three people in southern France on Friday when he carjacked a vehicle and took hostages in a supermarket before being shot dead, officials said.
Redouane Lakdim, 26, a FrenchMoroccan who had been under surveillance for radicalization, demanded the release of Salah Abdelslam, the prime suspect in a deadly 2015 terror attack in Paris.
ISIS later claimed responsibility for Friday’s bloodshed, which also left five people wounded, including a high-ranking cop who took the place of a female hostage and was fighting for his life.
“Our country has suffered an Islamist terrorist attack,” said President Emmanuel Macron, who hailed the 45-year-old officer as a hero.
The ISIS-linked Aamaq news agency said Lakdim launched the attack in response to calls to target the US-led coalition that has been carrying out airstrikes against ISIS in Syria and Iraq.
Lakdim first hijacked a car in his hometown of Carcassonne, where he fatally shot a passenger in the head and wounded the driver before heading off toward nearby Trèbes, authorities said.
Along the way, he opened fire on four unarmed cops who were out for a jog in athletic garb featuring police insignia, said Yves Lefebvre, secretary general of the SGP Police-FO police union.
One officer suffered a non-lifethreatening shoulder injury, he said.
The jihadist then sped to the small medieval town of Trèbes, where he shouted “Allahu Akbar!” — Arabic for “God is greatest” — before storming into a Super U supermarket.
“You’re bombing Syria! You’re going to die!” he yelled as he claimed allegiance to ISIS and opened fire, killing a butcher and a customer.
“A man shouted and started firing several times,” a shopper told France Info radio station. “I saw an open door for a refrigerated area, and I told people to come to shelter there. We were 10 people, and we got out by the emergency exit at the back.”
After releasing dozens of hostages, Lakdim remained holed up in the store with the gendarme, a military police officer who offered himself instead of one of the hostages, Le Figaro reported.
After an hours-long siege, antiterror police stormed the supermarket and killed the gunman. The gendarme and a SWAT team member were injured, according to France 24.
Interior Minister Gerard Collomb said the quick-thinking gendarme left his cellphone on so officers outside could hear the gunman, who was armed with one or more grenades, a handgun and knives.
“He was known for petty crimes. We had monitored him and thought there was no radicalization,” Collomb said. “He was known for possession of drugs. We couldn’t have said that he was a radical that would carry out an attack.”
Lakdim, who was active in Salafist social networks, was suspected of having traveled to Syria, Le Parisien reported.
France is still on high alert after a series of jihadist attacks since early 2015, when an assault on satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo left 12 people dead.