Serbian police detain two after crossbow attack on Israeli embassy in Belgrade
Assailant killed, said by police to be linked to ultra-conservative Wahhabist branch of Islam; Israeli ambassador visits officer injured in ‘targeted terrorist act’
Two men were remanded in custody after a Serbian police officer killed a man who shot him with a crossbow outside the Israeli embassy in Belgrade on Saturday in a “targeted terrorist act,” a minister said Sunday.
The assailant, whom the police identified as being a “convert” to Islam, shot the officer while he was on duty in front of the Israeli embassy.
The policeman opened fire in self-defense and the attacker later died.
The assailant, from Mladenovac, near Belgrade, lived in Novi Pazar, a historical and political center of Serbia’s Bosniak Muslim minority, police said.
Early indications connected the attack with people suspected of being linked to the ultra-conservative Wahhabist branch of Islam that dominates in Saudi Arabia, the authorities said.
They added that a number of people known to the security services were suspected of being linked to the attack.
“Searches were conducted at several locations in Serbia; dozens of people were questioned,” Serbian Interior Minister Ivica Dacic told the state-run RTS broadcaster on Sunday.
The prosecutors will establish whether they were linked with the “targeted terrorist attack,” he added.
“What is indisputable about all those people is that they belong to the Wahhabi extremist movement.”
Two men were remanded in custody, the minister said.
Security was stepped up to the highest level throughout the country and the police operation was continuing, Dacic said.
“It is an operation against extremists and terrorists, people directly involved in the attack, but… also against those for whom there are indications they might belong to terrorist groups,” said the minister.
Foreign Minister Israel Katz on Saturday thanked Serbian authorities for their “strong support and cooperation following the attempted terror act on the Embassy of Israel in Belgrade today.”
“Terrorism cannot be tolerated!” he said on X.
Yahel Vilan, Israel’s ambassador to Serbia, visited the wounded officer in a Belgrade hospital.
Serbia has continued arms sales to Israel since Hamas’s October 7 massacre on southern Israel, when thousands of terrorists stormed the country’s south, killing some 1,200 people and taking 251 hostages.
I would like to thank the Government of Serbia and all those involved in the prompt response, for their strong support and cooperation following the attempted terror act on the Embassy of Israel in Belgrade today, during which a Serbian guard was injured by the terrorist. I would…
— ישראל כ”ץ Israel Katz (@Israel_katz) June 29, 2024
Israel’s devastating retaliatory offensive on the Gaza Strip has led several countries to limit arms sales to Israel.
The Hamas-run Gaza health ministry says more than 37,500 people in the Strip have been killed or are presumed dead in the fighting so far, though the toll cannot be verified and does not differentiate between civilians and combatants.
Israel says it has killed some 15,000 terror operatives in battle and some 1,000 terrorists inside Israel during the October 7 attack.
