Sweden: A 39-year-old man Uzbek origin and a supporter of the Islamic State (IS) group was arrested early Saturday, hours after a beer truck ploughed into a crowd outside a busy department store in central Stockholm, killing four.
The prosecutors said the man was arrested for a “terrorist crime”.
Police said earlier on Friday after the attack that they had detained the man who “matched the description” of a photo released of a suspect wearing a dark hoodie and military green jacket.
But they did not confirm if he drove the truck.
Sweden will not be cowed by “these heinous murderers,” Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Lofven said on Friday after a truck attack in Stockholm killed four.
“Sweden has been attacked. Everything points to the fact that this is a terrorist attack,” PM Lofven told reporters during a visit to western Sweden.
A truck rammed into people on a central Stockholm street before crashing into a department store on Friday.
If confirmed as a terror attack, it would be Sweden`s first such deadly assault. Fifteen people, including children.
The truck had been stolen while making a beer delivery to a tapas bar further up Drottninggatan, Spendrups Brewery spokesman Marten Lyth said. A masked person jumped into the cab, started the truck and drove away.
Several attacks in which trucks or cars have driven into crowds have taken place in Europe in the past year. al Qaeda in 2010 urged its followers to use trucks as a weapon.
Islamic State claimed responsibility for an attack in Nice, France, last July, when a truck killed 86 people celebrating Bastille Day, and one in Berlin in December, when a truck smashed through a Christmas market, killing 12 people.
Bureau Report
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