French police killed a gunman holed up in supermarket in southern France where he had taken hostages earlier on Friday (March 23rd), al-Arabiya reported.
"The hostage-taker is dead," a source close to the investigation said, adding that he was killed during a raid on the supermarket. Two officers were wounded.
Gerard Collomb, the French Interior Minister also confirmed the news on Twitter. Earlier three people were killed in three separate incidents.
The "Islamic State of Iraq and Syria" (ISIS) claimed responsibility for the shooting spree and hostage siege in the medieval town of Carcassonne and nearby Trebes in southern France, its propaganda agency Amaq said, according to AFP.
Collomb named the gunman as 26-year-old Redouane Lakdim and described him as a small-time drug dealer.
"He was known by the police for petty crimes, we had monitored him and did not think he had been radicalised," Collomb said after arriving at the scene of the hostage-taking in the town of Trebes.
"He was already under surveillance when he suddenly decided to act," he said.
The gunman took several people hostage after opening fire on passengers in a car and a police officer in nearby Carcassonne.
He eventually let the hostages go after a policeman offered to take their place.
Security forces stormed the store after he shot the officer who was seriously wounded, Collomb said.
