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The Independent UK
The Independent UK
World
Lizzie Dearden

Copenhagen attack: Isis claims responsibility for shooting that injured two police officers in Christiania

Isis has claimed responsibility for a shooting attack that injured two police officers and a bystander in Copenhagen.

The officers were assaulted while on patrol in the Danish capital's district of Christiania, which is known for its drugs trade, on Wednesday.

In a statement released through its online propaganda agency, Isis described the attacker as a "soldier of the Islamic State", saying he was responding to jihadists' calls for followers to carry out atrocities in the West.

The attacker was criticially injured in the ensuing shoot-out with police and died today in Copenhagen's university hospital.

Two police officers were shot, including one who was seriously wounded, and a bystander was also injured.

Isis' claim of responsibility could not be independently verified and local residents initially linked the gunfight with Christiania's drug trade.

Some of the 600 residents of the district, a semi-autonomous former squatter colony created in the 1970s, vowed to drive criminal gangs who run the cannabis trade out of the area following the attack.

One of the stalls in the infamous "Pusher Street" was dismantled, with locals saying the suspected attacker had worked there.

Residents demolish cannabis vending stalls following a shooting in Christiania, Copenhagen, Denmark September 2, 2016. (Reuters)

He was named as Mesa Hodzic, a Danish citizen who was born in Bosnia, but moved to the country at the age of four.

"He apparently has ties to [militant Islamist group] Millatu Ibrahim and sympathies for Isis," police said in an initial statement, adding that there was "no evidence that [his alleged terrorist sympathies] has influenced the shooting incidents."

The shooting followed a string of attacks by Isis supporters across Europe, including the massacre of more than 80 people in Nice, a suicide bombing and axe attack in Germany and machete rampage in Belgium.

Several attackers left messages pledging allegiance to Isis or its spokesman, Abu Muhammad al-Adnani, who was killed in an air strike this week.

Adnani featured prominently in audio recordings and videos calling for lone wolf attacks in the West in revenge for air strikes against Isis, with his last announcement released in May.

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