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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-yearold attacker was slain as elite police forces stormed the market. They were aided by a heroic police officer who offered himself in a hostage swap and suffered life-threatening wounds as a result. He was one of 16 injured.

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 of 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.

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. 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 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. 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 southeast of Toulouse, shooting and killing two people in the market and taking an unknown number of hostages.

France has been on high alert since a series of extremist attacks in 2015 and 2016 that killed more than 200 people.