CROSSBOW TERROR
‘Terror attack’ at Israeli embassy in Serbia as crossbow-wielding attacker shoots cop in neck before being gunned down
Footage shows dozens of police cars lined up outside the embassy after the horror attack
A COP is fighting for his life after a crossbow-wielding attacker shot him in the neck outside an Israeli embassy in Belgrade.
Interior Minister Ivica Dacic called it a terrorist attack against Serbia.
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The policeman is in a life-threatening condition and is having surgery, Dacic said, according to Serbian news agency Tanjug.
The minister said the cop was shot in the neck with an arrow by a man who approached him several times to ask where a museum was.
The police officer managed to fire several shots at the attacker, who was pronounced dead at the scene.
Dacic said: "This is a terrorist attack against Serbia."
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Pictures showed investigators in white forensic suits surrounding the body of the suspect outside the embassy - with what appeared to be a crossbow on the ground next to him.
Dacic said several people believed to be linked to the shocking attack have already been arrested.
Referring to an ultra-conservative branch of Islam, he said: "There are some indications that they are already known to security services and we are talking about the Wahhabi organisation, but that is not confirmed."
He added that security measures have now been ramped up across Belgrade.
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"Security measures have been strengthened not only in front of embassies, state institutions, but we have also strengthened security measures so that citizens can see police in shopping centres, promenades," he said.
The police officer injured in the embassy attack was stood in a guard house and the attacker, carrying a bag, approached him to ask where a museum was.
He then took out the crossbow and shot the cop, Dacic said.
"The 34-year-old policeman used a weapon in self-defense and neutralized the assailant, who died as a result of his wounds," the Interior Minister added.
"The policeman was transferred to an emergency center conscious, where surgery will be performed to remove the arrow from his neck.
"All the circumstances of the attack and possible motives are being investigated."
According to local reports, the attacker was also carrying a knife.
Israel's foreign ministry said there had been "an attempted terrorist attack in the vicinity of the Israeli embassy in Belgrade".
It said no embassy employees were wounded.
";The embassy is closed and no employee of the embassy was injured," it said.
"The circumstances of the incident are being investigated."
Special prosecutors in Serbia have taken over the case.
Israel-linked institutions around the world have been on high alert for attacks since Israel launched its war on Hamas in Gaza in October last year.
In 2009, Serbia sentenced four followers of the Sunni Wahhabi sect to prison for plotting to attack a football stadium in a southern town of Novi Pazar.
Last month, a terrorist killed a German cop during a frenzied knife attack.
Sulaiman Ataee, 25, savagely assaulted 29-year-old officer Rouven Laur at the Mannheim anti-Islam rally on May 31 by stabbing him in the head and neck multiple times.
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Horrifying footage captured on a YouTube livestream showed Ataee brandishing a huge knife before lunging at far-right activist Michael Stürzenberger and four bystanders before targeting Lauer.
The hero cop was immediately taken to hospital for emergency surgery as doctors desperately battled to save his life - but he was pronounced dead two days later.
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