Brussels: IS claims responsibility for attack on Sweden

2023-10-18 06:38:00

One of its fighters committed the crime in which two Swedish citizens were shot, IS said on Tuesday evening via its channel on the messaging service Telegram. After the fatal shots at two Swedish football fans, the suspected perpetrator was shot dead by the police – we reported.

According to the authorities, he was a 45-year-old Tunisian. Shortly after the crime, investigators said they were following up on evidence of an Islamist motive, particularly in connection with the Koran burnings in Sweden. The alleged perpetrator is said to have claimed in an Internet video that he was close to IS and that he had killed the Swedes in order to take revenge in the name of the Muslims.

Video: Brussels – Attack during World Cup qualifying

In the evening, the terror level for Belgium’s capital was lowered again. Prime Minister Alexander De Croo said that it is currently not assumed that there is a network, but rather an individual perpetrator. After the fatal shots on Monday evening, the highest terror level was declared for Brussels. Now only the second highest level should apply to the capital – just like the rest of the country.

According to previous information from Justice Minister Vincent van Quickenborne, the alleged perpetrator was a 45-year-old Tunisian who applied for asylum in Belgium in November 2019. The State Secretary for Asylum and Migration, Nicole de Moor, said his asylum application had been negatively decided and he was officially removed from the national register in February 2021.

Attacker arrived in Lampedusa in 2011

The Tunisian man suspected of shooting two Swedish soccer fans in Brussels came to the Italian island of Lampedusa in 2011. An Italian government source said this on Tuesday, confirming a report by the ANSA news agency. According to the report, the suspect stayed in Italy for some time, then traveled to Sweden, but was probably deported from there. He returned to Italy, where he was identified as a radicalized person by the police in Bologna in 2016 and was also monitored by secret services. The man then moved to Belgium.

According to Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson, the suspected assassin was also in Sweden “for a time.” Kristersson referred to “Belgian sources” in a press conference in Stockholm on Tuesday. As it became known in the evening, the man was already in a Swedish prison around ten years ago. At the time, he sometimes traveled around Europe under a false identity, said the operational chief of the Swedish security police, Fredrik Hallström, to the broadcaster SVT. According to the Swedish immigration authority, the Tunisian was in Sweden between 2012 and 2014. After serving his prison sentence, the man traveled to another EU country, said the immigration authority spokesman. None of the people interviewed wanted to say why the man was imprisoned in Sweden. Previously it was said that the man was not known to the Swedish police.

“We need to control our borders better”

The head of government called for more vigilance: “We in Sweden and the EU must control our borders better.” Kristersson sees his country as threatened as never before. “Never in modern times has Sweden been under as great a threat as it is now,” he said. Everything points to a terrorist attack in which the suspected Islamist-motivated perpetrator specifically attacked his victims “because they were Swedes.”

Two months ago, the Swedish secret service Säpo declared the second highest terror alert level. There had previously been several actions in the country in which demonstrators set fire to the Koran or otherwise desecrated the Muslims’ holy scripture. The actions sparked mass protests in several predominantly Muslim countries.

Picture gallery: Terror alarm in downtown Brussels

View gallery

The Swedes killed in Monday’s terrorist attack in Brussels were two men aged around 60 and around 70. The Swedish Foreign Ministry confirmed this to TV4 on Tuesday. The older one lived in the greater Stockholm area, the younger one outside Sweden. As the Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs (EDA) announced on Tuesday, one of the fatalities was a resident of Switzerland.

A third person was also injured in the attack in Brussels. According to TV4, this is also a Swedish man aged around 70. According to the information, his life was out of danger.

“What world do we actually live in today?”

The “terrible terrorist attack” during the football game was again condemned on Tuesday by Chancellor Karl Nehammer (ÖVP). “What world do we actually live in today, where two football fans are shot, murdered, under the flimsy argument of killing for religious reasons?” Nehammer asked at the beginning of a federal government press conference on economic stimulus measures.

The Chancellor had previously condemned the act “in the strongest possible terms” on Monday evening. “We stand side by side in the fight against terror and extremism,” emphasized Nehammer via Twitter (X). Foreign Minister Alexander Schallenberg (ÖVP) also condemned the attack.

Early on Monday evening, according to the Belga news agency, an armed man got off a scooter in the north of the city center and fired shots on the street. When several people fled into a house entrance, he is said to have chased them and shot them. The police did not initially confirm this information.

The crime occurred shortly after 7 p.m. near Place Sainctelette in the north of the Belgian capital, immediately before a European Championship qualifier at the King Badouin Stadium in Brussels. The victims were Swedish fans. The two Swedes died around five kilometers from the Brussels football stadium. The European Championship qualifier was canceled when the score was 1-1.

Belgium has been the target of terrorist attacks several times in recent years. On March 22, 2016, three suicide bombers blew themselves up at the airport and in a subway station in the capital Brussels. 35 people were killed and almost 700 others were injured. IS claimed responsibility for the crimes.