In Serbia, a man with a crossbow shoots in front of the Israeli embassy, ​​seriously injuring a police officer

He was armed with a crossbow. A man seriously injured a police officer on duty outside the Israeli embassy in Belgrade, the capital of Serbia, on Saturday, June 29. A “unknown person shot a member of the security forces, who was providing security for the Israeli embassy, ​​with a crossbow and hit him in the neck”, specified the Minister of the Interior, Ivica Dacic. An investigation is being carried out into the circumstances of the attack, specify the Israeli authorities.

The policeman has “used a weapon in self-defense” against the assailant, who is “died of his wounds”, added Ivica Dacic in a press release. The injured police officer, who underwent surgery at a hospital, was inside his guard cabin at the time of the incident. Several people were arrested “preventatively”, and the alert level was raised.

Serbian Prime Minister Milos Vucevic condemned the attack, which he called “heinous terrorist act”. “This is an act of madness that cannot be attributed to any religion or nation. It is the crime of an individual,” he said, quoted by the Beta news agency. Milos Vucevic promised that his country would be able to respond firmly to the terrorist threat.

Calling the attack a“terrorist act directed against the Serbian state”Ivica Dacic said the attacker was a Muslim, living in a town near the border with Kosovo. Ivica Dacic told reporters that the attack was “linked to several people long suspected of having connections to the Wahhabi movement”an ultraconservative branch of Islam that dominates Saudi Arabia. The Israeli Foreign Ministry, for its part, has denounced “an attempted terrorist attack” near its embassy in Belgrade. “The embassy is closed and no employees have been injured,” he said.