The alleged attacker was arrested after being shot and injured by police, police said.
A knife-wielding man killed at least two people and injured several in Lisbon, Portugal, on Tuesday (March 28) before being neutralized by police. The attack targeted the world headquarters of the Ismailis, a Shia Muslim community led by the Aga Khan.
“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. The alleged perpetrator was in possession of “a large knife” and was taken to a hospital in the Portuguese capital, authorities added. He was “alive and in custody,” police said.
Mentioned “An Isolated Act”.
“We know that he is an Afghan, a refugee who actually broke into the center for one reason or another,” community leader 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.
“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.”
The hypothesis of a terrorist attack mentioned by the local media was therefore not confirmed at that time. “The first elements point to an isolated act,” declared the President of the Republic, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, in a statement.
Ismail is targeted
The attack happened near the Ismaili Center in Lisbon. This community of Shia Ismailis has established its world headquarters in Lisbon and its spiritual leader, the Aga Khan, obtained Portuguese citizenship in 2019. The Ismailis, a minority of Shia Islam, form a community of 15 million people spread across thirty countries. have about 7,000 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.