A Tunisian man who killed two Swedish citizens in a terrorist attack in Brussels was “probably a lone wolf”, the Belgian prime minister has said, as Sweden and Italy called for security at Europe’s borders to be tightened.
Sweden’s prime minister said the country was suffering “unfathomable sadness” after the fatal shooting of two Swedish football fans, one in his 60s and one in his 70s, and the wounding of a taxi driver.
Speaking before a planned visit to Brussels on Wednesday to take part in a memorial ceremony, Ulf Kristersson warned that it was time for Europe to bolster security. “This is a time for more security; we can’t be naive,” he said.
“We have an openness in Europe, which is one of the important reasons why we need to keep an eye on the EU’s external border, because otherwise people can easily move between European countries,” he added.
“These terrorists want to scare us into obedience and silence. That will not happen.”
The suspected assailant, identified in reports as Abdesalem Lassoued, 45, used an automatic rifle on Monday night to shoot dead the two men and injure the third before fleeing the scene on a scooter. He was shot dead on Tuesday morning by police outside a cafe in the Schaerbeek area near Brussels city centre.
Investigators said the suspect had claimed in a video on social media that he was a fighter “for Allah”, prompting concern over a potential wave of radicalisation triggered by the war between Israel and Hamas.
The prosecutor’s office, which had initially said there was no evidence that the attack was related to the conflict, said on Tuesday that such a link was being explored.
“We initially said that there would be no connection with the events in Gaza, but we have since established that he has shared a number of expressions of support for the Palestinian people on his social media,” said Eric Van Der Sypt of the federal prosecutor’s office. “So this may have played a role.”
The public prosecutor’s office said “all possible avenues” were being investigated. One possible line of inquiry is that the gunman was motivated by protests in Sweden at which the Qur’an, Islam’s holy book, was burned. In response to anger prompted by the burnings, Sweden’s intelligence service raised its threat level to four on a scale of five in August.
Belgium is still haunted by terrorist attacks in 2016 that killed 32 people and injured more than 300. But investigations are understood so far to have not shown any links between the gunman and other groups, or any evidence of a terrorist cell operating in Belgium.
Speaking at a press conference, the Belgian prime minister, Alexander De Croo, said the security threat level for Brussels had in fact been reduced to level 3 from level 4 after the fatal shooting of the attacker.
“We managed to neutralise the guilty person. So there was no longer any imminent threat,” De Croo said, adding he was “probably a lone wolf, but we cannot rule out copycat behaviour”.
However, the level 3 threat level, which has not been in force for more than five years, indicates that terrorist acts are “possible and probable”, with extra security deployed to secure certain areas and institutions such as the EU headquarters.
It emerged on Tuesday that Lassoued had travelled to Italy’s Lampedusa island in 2011 and then moved to Sweden, from where he was deported after a spell in prison, the Swedish migration agency said. He is then believed to have returned to Italy, where he was identified by police in Bologna in 2016 as a “radicalised subject” who was also monitored by intelligence services.
The man then moved to Belgium.
The Belgian justice minister, Vincent Van Quickenborne, confirmed the perpetrator “was on the radar of the security services” for illegal residence and four other matters but not on the country’s list of potential terrorists. He had no criminal record, he added.
The gunman’s background looks likely to reignite debate about migration to the EU. Italy’s interior minister called on Brussels to speed up implementation of the controversial deal it did with Tunisia to reduce people smuggling across the Mediterranean.
Speaking on Tuesday, Kristersson expressed particular concern for Swedish citizens. “All indications are that this is a terror attack aimed at Sweden and Swedish citizens only due to them being Swedish,” he said.
His thoughts were with the “innocent people who have died”, the injured man and their relatives, as well as Sweden fans in the stadium who had travelled to Belgium for the Euro 2024 qualifying football match between Belgium and Sweden. The flag outside the Swedish parliament was flown at half mast on Tuesday.
