Sweden: Truck ploughs into Stockholm department store

Sweden – (warsoor) – Three people were killed when a truck ploughed into a crowd on a shopping street and crashed into a department store in central Stockholm on Friday.

The incident occurred just before 13:00GMT at the corner of the Ahlens department store and Drottninggatan, the city’s biggest pedestrian street, above-ground from Stockholm’s central subway station.

“We stood inside a shoe store and heard something … and then people started to scream,” witness Jan Granroth told the Aftonbladet daily. “I looked out of the store and saw a big truck.”.

Sweden’s Prime Minister Stefan Lofven said everything indicates it was “a terror attack”. He said one suspect was arrested.

“We are thinking of the dead and the injured and their families. I am urging the public to be vigilant and keep updating the police,” Lofven said.

Photos from the scene showed a beer truck sticking out of the department store, and Aftonbladet daily reported that Swedish beer maker Spendrups said one of its trucks had been carjacked earlier on Friday.

The vehicle reportedly caught fire after driving through the busy pedestrian zone and slamming into the building.

The area was cordoned off and evacuated as police and emergency services worked at the scene.

Body-like forms covered by blankets were seen on Drottninggatan, a Reuters witness said.

 “I saw at least three dead, but probably more,” Swedish radio reporter Martin Svenningsen said.

Live television footage on Friday showed smoke coming out of the upscale Ahlens department store.

Friday’s incident is near the site of a December 2010 attack in which Taimour Abdulwahab, a Swedish citizen who lived in Britain, detonated a suicide bomb, killing himself and injuring two others.

Several attacks in which trucks or cars have driven into crowds have taken place in Europe in the past year.

In London last month, a man in a car ploughed into pedestrians on Westminster Bridge, killing four, and then stabbed a policeman to death before being shot by police.

In Nice, France, last July, a truck killed 86 people celebrating Bastille Day, and one in Berlin in December smashed through a Christmas market, killing 12 people.

Source: Aljazeera

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