‘Terror attack’ at Israeli embassy in Serbia as crossbow-wielding attacker shoots cop in neck before being gunned down
A COP is fighting for his life after a crossbow-wielding attacker shot him in the neck outside an Israeli embassy in Belgrade.
Interior Minister Ivica Dacic called it a terrorist attack against Serbia.
The policeman is in a life-threatening condition and is having surgery, Dacic said, according to Serbian news agency Tanjug.
The minister said the cop was shot in the neck with an arrow by a man who approached him several times to ask where a museum was.
The police officer managed to fire several shots at the attacker, who was pronounced dead at the scene.
Dacic said: “This is a terrorist attack against Serbia.”
Pictures showed investigators in white forensic suits surrounding the body of the suspect outside the embassy – with what appeared to be a crossbow on the ground next to him.
Dacic said several people believed to be linked to the shocking attack have already been arrested.
Referring to an ultra-conservative branch of Islam, he said: “There are some indications that they are already known to security services and we are talking about the Wahhabi organisation, but that is not confirmed.”
He added that security measures have now been ramped up across Belgrade.
“Security measures have been strengthened not only in front of embassies, state institutions, but we have also strengthened security measures so that citizens can see police in shopping centres, promenades,” he said.
The police officer injured in the embassy attack was stood in a guard house and the attacker, carrying a bag, approached him to ask where a museum was.
He then took out the crossbow and shot the cop, Dacic said.
According to local reports, the attacker was also carrying a knife.
Israel’s foreign ministry said there had been “an attempted terrorist attack in the vicinity of the Israeli embassy in Belgrade”.
It said no embassy employees were wounded.
“The embassy is closed and no employee of the embassy was injured,” it said.
“The circumstances of the incident are being investigated.”
Special prosecutors in Serbia have taken over the case.
Israel-linked institutions around the world have been on high alert for attacks since Israel launched its war on Hamas in Gaza in October last year.
In 2009, Serbian sentenced four followers of the Sunni Wahhabi sect to prison for plotting to attack a football stadium in a southern town of Novi Pazar.
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