Calling the attack a terrorist act against the Serbian state, Interior Minister Uvica Dacic said the assailant was “a convert” to Islam.
The man is a “convert from Mladenovac (a town south of Belgrade, editor’s note), who settled in Novi Pazar,” according to a statement from the ministry.
Mr. Dacic told journalists that the attack was “linked to several people long suspected of having connections with the Wahhabi movement”, an ultraconservative branch of Islam which dominates in Saudi Arabia, some “converts to Islam.”
Several people were arrested “preventatively”, and the alert level was raised in Belgrade, the Minister of the Interior further indicated.
Around 11:00 a.m., an “unknown person (…) shot a member of the security forces, who was ensuring the security of the Israeli embassy, with a crossbow and hit him in the neck,” Mr. Dacic said.
The police officer “used a weapon in self-defense” against the attacker, who “died of his wounds,” he added in a press release.
The injured police officer, who underwent surgery at a hospital, was inside his guard cabin at the time of the incident.
Serbian Prime Minister Milos Vucevic condemned the attack as a “heinous terrorist act”.
“This is an act of madness that cannot be attributed to any religion or nation. It is the crime of an individual,” he said, quoted by the Beta news agency. .
The prime minister promised that his country would be able to respond firmly to the terrorist threat and stressed that Serbian citizens could “feel safe.”
The Israeli Foreign Ministry denounced “an attempted terrorist attack” near its embassy in Belgrade.
“The embassy is closed and no employees were injured,” he said in a statement, noting that a Serbian police officer had been injured. An investigation is being carried out into the circumstances of the attack, specify the Israeli authorities.
