STOCKHOLM – An apparent stolen truck plowed into a department store in central Stockholm on Friday, killing at least three people in what the country’s prime minister said appeared to be a terrorist attack.
Authorities imposed sweeping security measures, including closing off streets and shutting down transit lines – in scenes recalling last month’s terrorist assault in London. Sweden’s prime minister, Stefan Lofven, said the immediate indications suggested “a terror attack”
Sweden’s TT news agency quoted the communications director for the brewing company Spendrups as saying that the vehicle used in the incident was one of their delivery trucks, and that it had been stolen earlier in the day.
At a restaurant delivery “someone jumped into the driver’s cabin and drove off with the car while the driver unloaded,” said communications director Marten Lyth, according to TT.
Swedish security services said at least three people were killed. A statement from Sweden’s Intelligence Agency said “a large number” of people were injured.
Images on social media showed hundreds of people running along the street after the crash. Smoke rose from the front of the store, located in the upscale Ahlens City retail hub in the heart of Stockholm.
Shoppers were locked inside stores after businesses triggered their automatic security locks. The attack occurred just before 3 p.m. on a mild spring afternoon, when the city’s central district is customarily buzzing with shoppers, office workers and bicyclists
An hour after the attack, police evacuated travelers and others from the central train station near the crash site.
“It’s not safe here,” police announced, using loudspeakers in the station, according to Ahmed Abd el Latif, a witness.
Another witness, Jan Granroth, told the Aftonbladet newspaper that “people started to scream.”
“I looked out of the store and saw a big truck,” he said.
The incident comes just a little over two weeks after a man plowed an SUV into a crowd of pedestrians on a London bridge, then stabbed a police officer at the gates of Parliament. The assailant killed five people, including a woman who died Friday from her injuries after having been knocked off the bridge and into the River Thames.