Seven stabbed in ‘terror attack’
A suspected terrorist armed with a bladed weapon has injured seven people in a rampage in the centre of a Swedish town.
The attacker, said to be a man in his twenties and armed with a knife or an axe, ran amok in Vetlanda, which is about halfway between Stockholm and Malmo, shortly before 3pm local time yesterday. He was then shot by police and is being treated in hospital. No deaths were reported in the immediate aftermath of the attack.
‘‘The acting leader of our investigation has decided that this should be classified as a terrorist crime,’’ a spokesman for the local constabulary said.
While warfare between rival gangs is fairly common in Sweden, terror attacks are rarer. The last significant incident was in 2017, when a failed asylum seeker from Uzbekistan, who had pledged loyalty to Islamic State, drove a lorry into a crowd in Stockholm, killing five people and injuring 14 others.
The background to the violence in Vetlanda was unclear yesterday and there were no indications of the attacker’s motivation.
The authorities said that several of the seven people who were wounded had been seriously injured. Police would not say why officers had opened fire on the apparent terrorist rather than attempting to restrain him.
The man was previously known to police for minor crimes, the police spokesman said.
Mikael Darmberg, the interior minister, said: ‘‘A number of people are gravely injured. These are appalling events and my thoughts are with the victims and their relatives.’’