Serbia: crossbow attacker shot dead after firing bolt at Israeli embassy guard | Serbia

An attacker with a crossbow wounded a police officer guarding the Israeli embassy in Belgrade before being shot dead, Serbia’s interior ministry said.

The interior minister, Ivica Dačić, described the incident as a terrorist attack against Serbia.

He said in a statement that the attacker fired a bolt at the officer, hitting him in the neck. He said the officer then “used a weapon in self-defence to shoot the attacker, who died as a result of his injuries”.

The officer was conscious when he was transported to Belgrade’s main emergency hospital, where an operation to remove the bolt from his neck will be performed, he added.

The Serbian news agency Tanjug quoted Dačić as saying the officer was in a life-threatening condition and undergoing surgery.

The identity of the attacker is still being determined.

“This is a terrorist attack against Serbia,” Dačić said in the statement carried by Tanjug.

He said several people believed to have been linked to the incident had been arrested.

“There are some indications that [those arrested] are already known to security services and we are talking about the Wahhabi organisation, but that is not confirmed,” Dačić said, referring to a strict school of Islam.

The officer was in a guard house and the attacker had approached him several times asking him where a museum was. He carried a bag from which at one point he took the crossbow and shot the guard, Dačić said.

Serbia has maintained close relations with Israel amid its armed intervention in Gaza.