Sweden facing unprecedented security threat, says PM

STOCKHOLM: Sweden has never in modern times faced a bigger security threat, Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson said on Tuesday, calling a shooting in Brussels that killed two Swedes a “terror attack” against his country. 

Brussels police on Tuesday shot and fatally wounded the suspected attacker. “Sweden has in modern times never been under as big a threat as now,” Kristersson told reporters after two Swedish football fans were killed and a third injured in the shooting on Monday evening.

“Every indication is that this is a terror attack, targeting Sweden and Swedish citizens, just because they are Swedes,” he said, adding he felt an “unfathomable sadness”. In August, Sweden´s intelligence service Sapo raised its threat level to four on a scale of five after a series of Quran burnings across the country had made it a “prioritised target”.

“It was risks like this that were the reason Sapo this summer raised the threat level from three to four,” Kristersson said. “Now we know with chilling clarity that there was cause for the concern that they and we in the government described,” he added.

The prime minister vowed “to protect our open, democratic society”. “They want to scare us into silence ... That´s not going to happen,” he said.In a social media post after the killings, the gunman had boasted of being inspired by the Islamic State extremist group. Several Belgian media named the suspect as Abdesalem Lassoued, aged 45.