BELGRADE (Reuters) – An assailant who fired a crossbow at a police officer guarding the Israeli embassy in Belgrade was shot dead on Saturday, in a move Interior Minister Ivica Dacic called a terrorist attack on Serbia.
The policeman is in mortal danger and is undergoing surgery, Dacic said, as quoted by Serbia’s Tanjug news agency.
The minister said the attacked police officer was hit in the neck with an arrow and that he shot the attacker several times, killing him.
“This is a terrorist attack on Serbia,” Dacic said in the statement Tanjug brought with him.
He said several people suspected of involvement in the incident have been arrested.
“There are some indications that they (the arrested) are already known to the security services and we are talking about the Wahhabi organization, but it is not confirmed,” Dacic said, referring to a strict Islamic school.
The police officer was in a guardhouse and the attacker had approached him several times to ask where a museum was. He was carrying a bag from which he at one point grabbed the crossbow and shot the guard, Dacic said.
(Reporting by Ivana Sekularac; Editing by Alison Williams)
