BRUSSELS: A Tunisian gunman suspected of killing two Swedish football fans in Brussels died on Tuesday after being shot by police in a cafe, hours after an attack which Sweden’s prime minister said showed Europe must bolster security to protect itself.
The 45-year-old, who identified himself as a member of the militant Islamic State group and claimed responsibility in a video posted online, is also suspected of wounding another Swedish national in his attack in central Brussels on Monday night.
“This is a time for more security, we can’t be naive,” Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson told a news conference in Stockholm, calling for stricter border controls in Europe. “These terrorists want to scare us into obedience and silence. That will not happen,” he said.
Video footage of the attack posted on the Het Laatste Nieuws newspaper website showed a man in an orange jacket on a scooter at a street intersection with a rifle first firing five shots, then following people fleeing into a building before firing again.
“I saw the assailant enter the building and shoot twice towards the man — the man fell to the ground. I saw him fall because I was just nearby,” said a witness, who identified himself as Souleymane.
The victims were a man aged around 70 from the Stockholm region, and a man aged about 60 who lived abroad, Sweden’s foreign ministry said, adding that the injured man, also around 70, was still in hospital.
In a video on social media, the suspected gunman called himself Abdesalem Al Guilani. He unsuccessfully sought asylum in Belgium in 2019, was living in the country illegally and was known to Belgian police in connection with people smuggling, Justice Minister Vincent Van Quickenborne said.
He fled the scene after the shooting as a football match between Belgium and Sweden was about to start, triggering a manhunt and prompting Belgium to raise the terrorism alert in its capital to its highest level.
“The perpetrator targeted specifically Swedish supporters who were in Brussels to attend a Red Devils soccer match,” Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo said, calling it a “brutal terrorist attack”.
Belgium was hosting Sweden in a Euro 2024 qualifying match. The match was abandoned at halftime.
The suspect arrived in Italy’s Lampedusa island in 2011, an Italian government source said on Tuesday, confirming a report by the ANSA news agency.
The report said the suspect spent some time in Italy, went to Sweden but is thought to have been expelled from there. He returned to Italy where he was identified by police in Bologna in 2016 and then he moved to Belgium.
Published in Dawn, October 18th, 2023
