The attack on Swedish football fans in Brussels on Monday night by an extremist who claimed to be a supporter of the Islamic State has brutally revealed how Sweden and its citizens have been targeted by jihadist groups since the summer. The assailant shot with a rifle and killed two supporters – he identified them because they were wearing the yellow jersey of the Swedish national team – and wounded a third. Then he ran away.
Yesterday morning, the Belgian police already located him and shot him dead in a Brussels cafe. Due to the attack, the football match that was to be played by the national teams of Belgium and Sweden at the King Balduí stadium was suspended after the break, with the stands full of people.
As explained by the Belgian Federal Prosecutor’s Office, the man, a 45-year-old Tunisian named Abdesalem L., had sought asylum in Belgium in 2019, was known to the security services for his jihadist profile and was in an irregular situation in the country, reports Beatriz Navarro from Brussels. In a video on social networks, the man “introduces himself as the attacker and claims to be inspired by the Islamic State”, said the Belgian Federal Prosecutor’s Office, which is responsible for terrorism cases charge of the investigation.
“At this time, there is no evidence to indicate a potential relationship with the current Palestinian-Israeli situation,” said the spokesman for the Belgian Federal Prosecutor’s Office, Eric Van Duyse. The Italian Government later added that the man had arrived in 2011 on the island of Lampedusa, the entry point to Europe for migrants from North Africa in barges through the central Mediterranean.
The shock of the murders shook the Scandinavian country, since it transpired that, as pointed out by the Belgian Prosecutor’s Office, the attack was related to the nationality of the attackers. Sweden is under more threat than ever, Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson warned at the time at a press conference in Stockholm.
“The lives of two innocent people have been extinguished, they are two people who will never return home, it is unimaginably sad”, said the Swedish leader with a serious attitude. “In recent history, Sweden and Swedish interests have never been threatened as much as today,” Kristersson said, stressing that it was “a terrorist attack aimed at Swedes.”
Neither the Belgian investigators nor the Swedish government explicitly referred to why, but Sweden has been on alert level four – the scale is five – for terrorist threat since August 17, when the intelligence services (Säpo) estimated that the country had become a “priority target”, after several burnings of the Koran that took place in its territory. Despite the attack, the Swedish authorities decided yesterday to maintain alert level four and not to raise it further.
The risk had begun on June 28, when an Iraqi burned a copy of Islam’s holy book in front of the Stockholm mosque. The act, which was repeated several times, outraged as an offense to the Islamic world, and since then it has been the focus of diplomatic tension between Sweden – which argues that they are acts protected by the right to freedom of expression – and Governments of Muslim countries. Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan protested in August, saying such desecrations of the Koran made it difficult for his country to greenlight Sweden’s NATO membership, pending Turkish ratification. and Hungarian In the streets of Muslim-majority countries, notably Iraq and Pakistan, there have been protests and criticism, including burning of Swedish flags, calls for boycotts and threats of violence.
“We must counter the threats with more security”, insisted Swedish Prime Minister Kristersson. “I understand that many Swedes are afraid and angry; it’s time to have more security, we can’t be naive”, he added. This attack is a sign of individuals who “want to scare us and force us into silence and obedience; this will not happen, we must defend our values ??and stick to them”, he said.
Similar acts of burning and desecration of the Koran took place in Denmark in July. The Danish and Swedish governments, two of the EU member states with the largest percentage of Muslim populations, distanced themselves from the insults and issued harsh criticism of their perpetrators, but said they could not legally ban them, as it would mean limiting freedom of expression, protected by their respective Constitutions. All in all, the two Scandinavian countries are looking for options to try to stop acts of contempt for the Koran because of the consequences they usually bring.