STOCKHOLM: Swedes observed a minute of silence across the country on Monday for the victims of last week’s truck attack by a Uzbek man whom police believe was a jihadist sympathizer.
A huge crowd gathered solemnly outside the Ahlens department store at the corner of the Drottninggatan pedestrian street, where a stolen beer truck plowed down shoppers before slamming into the store’s facade, killing four people and injuring 15.
Media reports said the suspect had confessed, claiming he had been ordered by the Daesh group to carry out the attack against “infidels.”
Under grey and rainy skies, the crowd observed a minute of silence at noon (1000 GMT), many visibly moved with tears streaming down their cheeks as a sea of flowers and candles covered the ground.
“I just want to cry, many died here. For nothing,” said Fadi Mdalal, from Syria, who was among those at the scene.
The four dead were two Swedes, one of them an 11-year-old girl, a British man, and a Belgian woman.
Many people thanked and hugged police officers guarding the scene, some offering them flowers, for their widely-praised response to the attack.
At the same time, an official ceremony was held outside Stockholm’s City Hall, attended by Prime Minister Stefan Lofven, King Carl XVI Gustaf and most of the royal family, and Stockholm mayor Karin Wanngard.
“We will never give in to violence. We will never let terror prevail,” Wanngard said. “Stockholm will remain an open and tolerant city.”
To the families of the victims, Lofven said: “You are not alone, we are thinking of you. All of Sweden stands with you.”
The motive of Friday’s attack remains unknown, but the method resembled previous rampages using vehicles in Nice, Berlin and London, all of them claimed by IS.
Police are continuing their investigation into the main suspect, identified as a 39-year-old Uzbek who went underground when he received a deportation order after his permanent residency application was rejected last year.
Swedish media have named him as Rakhmat Akilov, a construction worker and father of four.
The far-right Sweden Democratic party blasted the authorities’ failure to deport the suspect.
“It’s a huge scandal if it’s true,” party leader Jimmie Akesson told the Aftonbladet daily. His party won almost 13 percent of votes in the 2014 legislative election.
“We need to detain people when there is a risk they will go underground, and there appear to be around 10,000 to 15,000 cases,” Akesson said.
However, Swedish police commissioner Dan Eliasson said “there was nothing in the system that indicated (the suspect) would do something like what he did on Friday.”
But he admitted the Swedish authorities were struggling to deport the estimated 12,000 people who have gone underground after being denied the right to stay.
The country of 10 million people took in 244,000 asylum seekers in 2014 and 2015, the highest per capita number in Europe.
On Sunday, the prime minister, who has beefed up border controls, also expressed “frustration,” saying: “If someone has been rejected, they have to leave the country.”
Arrested several hours after the attack, the suspect was to be formally remanded in custody by Tuesday at the latest.
The Uzbek national had expressed “sympathies for extremist organizations, including the Islamic State,” senior police official Jonas Hysing told reporters.
The suspect has confessed to the crime and said he was “pleased with what he had done,” the Aftonbladet and Expressen dailies reported.
“I mowed down the infidels,” he said, according to Aftonbladet, citing unidentified sources close to the investigation.
The suspect reportedly said he had received an “order” directly from IS to carry out the attack.
“The bombings in Syria have to end,” he allegedly said.
Police would not confirm whether he had confessed. But police commissioner Dan Eliasson said investigators were sure they had the truck driver, based on “discussions we’ve had with him.”
According to police, components were found in the stolen truck that could be used to make a “dangerous” object.
On Sunday, a second suspect was formally placed under arrest, Stockholm district court judge Helga Hullman told AFP, refusing to disclose any links between the two suspects.
“It can take up to a year to finish the investigation,” the head of national police operations, Mats Lofving, said Monday.
Sweden holds minute of silence for truck attack victims
Sweden holds minute of silence for truck attack victims
15 killed in an explosion and fire at a gas station in central Yemen
- The province of Bayda where the explosion occurred is controlled by Iranian-backed Houthi rebels, who have been at war with Yemen’s internationally recognized government for more than a decade
The explosion occurred Saturday at the Zaher district in the province of Bayda, the Houthi rebel-run Health Ministry said in a statement. At least 67 others were injured, including 40 in critical condition.
The ministry said rescue teams were searching for those reported missing. It wasn’t immediately clear what caused the explosion.
Footage circulated online showing a massive fire that sent columns of smoke into the sky and left vehicles charred and burning.
Bayda is controlled by Iranian-backed Houthi rebels, who have been at war with Yemen’s internationally recognized government for more than a decade.
Yemen’s civil war began in 2014, when the rebels took control of the capital, Sanaa, and much of the country’s north, forcing the government to flee to the south, then to Saudi Arabia. A Saudi-led coalition entered the war in March 2015, backed at the time by the US, in an effort to restore the internationally recognized government.
The war has killed more than 150,000 people including civilians and combatants, and in recent years deteriorated largely into a stalemate and caused one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises.
Malala Yousafzai says ‘Israel has decimated the entire education system’ in Gaza
- Nobel Peace laureate Malala Yousafzai on Sunday said she would continue to call out Israel’s violations of international law and human rights in Gaza
ISLAMABAD: Nobel Peace laureate Malala Yousafzai on Sunday said she would continue to call out Israel’s violations of international law and human rights in Gaza.
The education advocate was speaking at a global summit on girls’ education in Muslim nations hosted by Pakistan and attended by representatives from dozens of countries.
“In Gaza, Israel has decimated the entire education system,” she said in an address to the conference.
“They have bombed all universities, destroyed more than 90 percent of schools, and indiscriminately attacked civilians sheltering in school buildings.
“I will continue to call out Israel’s violations of international law and human rights.”
Yousafzai was shot when she was a 15-year-old schoolgirl by Pakistani militants enraged by her education activism.
She made a remarkable recovery after being evacuated to the United Kingdom and went on to become the youngest ever Nobel Prize winner at the age of 17.
“Palestinian children have lost their lives and future. A Palestinian girl cannot have the future she deserves if her school is bombed and her family is killed,” she added.
The war in Gaza was sparked by Hamas’s attack on October 7, 2023, which resulted in the deaths of 1,208 people on the Israeli side, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of official Israeli figures.
During the attack, Palestinian militants took 251 people hostage, of whom 94 remain in the Gaza Strip, including 34 the Israeli military has declared dead.
Israel’s attack on Gaza has killed 46,537 people, the majority civilians, according to figures from the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory considered reliable by the United Nations.
Israel’s Netanyahu sends Mossad director to Gaza ceasefire talks in Qatar
- His presence means high-level Israeli officials who would need to sign off on any agreement are now involved
- Just one brief ceasefire has been achieved in 15 months of Israel's war on Gaza which has killed over 44,000
JERUSALEM: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has approved sending the director of the Mossad foreign intelligence agency to ceasefire negotiations in Qatar in a sign of progress in talks on the war in Gaza.
Netanyahu’s office announced the decision Saturday. It was not immediately clear when David Barnea would travel to Qatar’s capital, Doha, site of the latest round of indirect talks between Israel and the Hamas militant group. His presence means high-level Israeli officials who would need to sign off on any agreement are now involved.
Just one brief ceasefire has been achieved in 15 months of war, and that occurred in the earliest weeks of fighting. The talks mediated by the United States, Egypt and Qatar have repeatedly stalled since then.
Netanyahu has insisted on destroying Hamas’ ability to fight in Gaza. Hamas has insisted on a full Israeli troop withdrawal from the largely devastated territory. On Thursday, Gaza’s Health Ministry said over 46,000 Palestinians have been killed in the war.
Syria de facto leader Al-Sharaa phones congratulations to Lebanon’s newly elected President Aoun
- Call followed talks between Al-Sharaa and Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati in Damascus
- Al-Sharaa said he hoped Joseph Aoun’s presidency would usher in an era of stability in Lebanon
DAMASCUS: Syria’s de facto leader Ahmed Al-Sharaa called newly elected Lebanese President Joseph Aoun on the phone and congratulated him for assuming the presidency, Syria’s ruling general command reported on Sunday.
The phone call followed talks between Al-Sharaa and Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati, who was in the Syrian capital on Saturday with a mission to restore ties between the two neighbors.
Mikati’s visit was the first by a Lebanese head of government to Damascus since the Syrian civil war started in 2011.
Previous Lebanese governments refrained from visits to Syria amid tensions at home over militant group Hezbollah’s support for then ruler Bashar Assad during the conflict.
Syria’s new leader Al-Sharaa said he hoped to turn over a new leaf in relations, days after crisis-hit Lebanon finally elected a president this week following two years of deadlock.
“There will be long-term strategic relations between us and Lebanon. We and Lebanon have great shared interests,” Sharaa said in a joint press conference with Mikati.
It was time to “give the Syrian and Lebanese people a chance to build a positive relationship,” he said, adding he hoped Joseph Aoun’s presidency would usher in an era of stability in Lebanon.
Sharaa said the new Syria would “stay at equal distance from all” in Lebanon, and “try to solve problems through negotiations and dialogue.”
Mikati said ties should be based on “mutual respect, equality and national sovereignty.”
Syria was the dominant power in Lebanon for three decades under the Assad family, with president Hafez Assad intervening in its 1975-1990 civil war and his son Bashar Assad only withdrawing Syria’s troops in 2005 following mass protests triggered by the assassination of Lebanese ex-prime minister Rafic Hariri.
After mending ties with Damascus, his son Saad Hariri was the last Lebanese premier to visit the Syrian capital in 2010 before the civil war.
Taking office on Thursday, Aoun swore he would seize the “historic opportunity to start serious... dialogue with the Syrian state.”
With Hezbollah weakened after two months of full-scale war with Israel late last year and Assad now gone, Syrian and Lebanese leaders seem eager to work to solve long-pending issues.
Among them is the presence of some two million Syrian refugees Lebanon says have sought shelter there since Syria’s war started.
Their return to Syria had become “an urgent matter in the interest of both countries,” Mikati said.
Lebanese authorities have long complained that hosting so many Syrians has become a burden for the tiny Mediterranean country which since 2019 has been wracked by its worst-ever economic crisis.
Mikati also said it was a priority “to draw up the land and sea borders between Lebanon and Syria,” calling for creation of a joint committee to discuss the matter.
Under Assad, Syria repeatedly refused to delimit its borders with its neighbor.
Lebanon has hoped to draw the maritime border so it can begin offshore gas extraction after reaching a similar agreement with Israel in 2022.
The Lebanese premier said both sides had stressed the need for “complete control of (land) borders, especially over illicit border points, to stem smuggling.”
Syria shares a 330-kilometer (205-mile) border with Syria with no official demarcation at several points, making it porous and prone to smuggling.
Syria imposed new restrictions on the entry of Lebanese citizens last week, following what Lebanon’s army said was a border skirmish with unnamed armed Syrians.
Lebanese nationals had previously been allowed into Syria without a visa.
Several foreign dignitaries have headed to Damascus in recent weeks to meet the new leaders, with a delegation from Oman also in town earlier Saturday.
Unlike other Arab Gulf states, Oman never severed diplomatic ties with Assad during the war.
Italy’s Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani visited Damascus on Friday, while France’s Jean-Noel Barrot and his German counterpart Annalena Baerbock did last week.
Shaibani has visited Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Jordan this month, and said Friday he would head to Europe soon.
Syria’s war has killed more than half a million people and ravaged the country’s economy since starting in 2011 with the brutal crackdown of anti-Assad protests.
Eight killed, 50 injured in explosion of gas station, gas storage tank in Yemen’s Al-Bayda, sources say
CAIRO: Eight people were killed and 50 others injured in an explosion of a gas station and a gas storage tank in Yemen’s Al-Bayda province, a medical source and a local official said.
