A knife-wielding man killed at least two people before being neutralized by Portuguese police in Lisbon in an attack on the world headquarters of the Ismailis, a Shia Muslim community led by Aga Khan.
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“The attack left several people injured and initially two dead,” police said in a statement, adding that the alleged perpetrator of the attack was arrested after he was shot and wounded by security forces.
However, the number of injured was questionable, another source reported only one injured.
The President of the National Council of the Ismaili Muslim Community, Rahim Firozali, said in a statement that “a man armed with a sharp object” entered the premises of the Ismaili center in Lisbon and “fatally assaulted three people (…) and beat two of them and a third wounded”.
“The striker’s motives are unknown,” he added.
The man who committed the attack with “a large knife” was taken to a hospital in the Portuguese capital, authorities said.
He was “alive and in custody,” police said.
Photo PATRICIA DE MELO MOREIRA / AFP
“An Afghan Refugee”
“We know that he is an Afghan, a refugee who actually broke into the center for one reason or another,” a community representative Nazim Ahmad told Portuguese commercial television SIC Ismaili from Lisbon.
“We know that there are two dead, two female (…) employees of the center,” he added.
The attack took place at the Ismaili Center in Lisbon. This community of Ismaili Shia Muslims established their world headquarters in Lisbon and their spiritual leader, the Aga Khan, obtained Portuguese citizenship in 2019.
Photo PATRICIA DE MELO MOREIRA / AFP
The Ismailis, a minority branch of Shia Islam, form a community of 12 to 15 million people spread across some thirty countries. They have about 7000 members in Portugal.
Attacks on Ismailis, accused by Sunni extremists of representing a “deviant” current in relation to Muslim orthodoxy, have multiplied in recent years, particularly in Pakistan.
“I express my solidarity and condolences to the victims and the Ismaili community,” Portuguese Prime Minister Antonio Costa told the press, adding that it is “premature to interpret the motives behind this criminal act.”
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“isolated act”
“The first elements point to an isolated act,” said the President of the Republic, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, in a press release.
According to the President of the Union of Afghan Communities in Portugal, Omed Taeri, the alleged attacker is a refugee who is “suffering from mental health problems” after “losing his wife in Greece”.
He arrived in Portugal just over a year ago and is worried about the fate of his three children, he said in an interview with news channel CNN Portugal.
According to local media, the attacker is in his 40s and takes English classes at the Ismaili center.
According to the press, the victims, two women of Portuguese nationality, are said to be a teacher in their forties and a student in their twenties.
The Aga Khan had decided to establish his community’s headquarters in Portugal after signing an agreement with the Portuguese state in June 2015 that provided tax benefits and diplomatic privileges, particularly in exchange for investments in scientific research and development.
The last attack on Portuguese soil dates back to July 27, 1983, when an armed group of five Armenians attacked the Turkish embassy in Lisbon, killing two people. The attackers were killed in the attack.
Police said they were notified of the attack just before 11 a.m. local time (10 a.m. GMT) and arrived at the scene very quickly.
In the early afternoon, near the Ismaili center of Lisbon, hooded police officers armed with submachine guns were stationed at the various entrances to this closed complex, which notably houses a mosque in a northern district of Lisbon.
Camping out in front of the main entrance, the journalists followed the movement of police cars and black special forces vans.