Three people have been hospitalised in the Swiss city of Winterhur after an “allahu akbar” shouting knifeman stabbed members of the public, prompting a major police response.
UPDATE: Alleged terrorist knifeman known Islamist say police
The alleged “allahu akbar” knifeman who ran amok stabbing passers-by in a Swiss city is 31-year-old Nesip Dedeler, newspaper Blick now states. A man of Turkish heritage who got Swiss citizenship in 2009, he is reportedly known in Islamist circles and came to the attention of police in 2015 for disseminating Islamic State propaganda.
We earlier noted that while Switzerland has largely avoided the Islamist terror problem the city of Winterhur in particularly — where this attack took place — has had a brush with Islamism in the past with a known extremist Mosque having been raided by police and shut down a decade ago. In an astounding coincidence — or not, you be the judge — it is now reported that alleged knifeman Dedeler was a devotee of that very mosque, the An’Nur.
It is stated Dedeler was seen by a psychiatric doctor only yesterday, on Wednesday, but was diagnosed as no threat and released. Police have declared the attack a suspected terror incident.
Switzerland’s 20Minuten news portal states it is believed that dual Turkish-Swiss citizen Dedeler is a self-confessed Salafist, critic of democracy, and spent the past two years in Turkey. Other members of his family are thought to be radicals.
It reported that Dedeler was imprisoned in 2015 over an assault. In prison, he expressed his theories on racial or religious supremacy and told officers: “Muslims are at the top, then come the animals, and finally the infidels. Even after the animals. You are at the very bottom.”
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A 31-year-old man, described as a Swiss citizen, was arrested near Winterhur railway station on Thursday morning after a mass stabbing. Several people are reported to have been attacked and three were hospitalised. Two victims received moderate wounds and a third is in serious condition.
Police said the victims, all Swiss citizens, are aged 28, 43, 52 and gave no further details. An investigation into the attack is underway and no indication has yet been made about a potential motive, or whether the Swiss government will class it as an act of terrorism.
Swiss German-language newspaper Blick reports on eyewitness accounts and video taken at the scene which show a heavily bearded man wearing casual clothes including a black t-shirt shouting “allahu akbar” (Allah is the greatest) and being later arrested. The footage shows the alleged knifeman running along the frontage of the station, prompting a teacher to place herself between the man and her pupils as she attempts to shepherd them out of his path.
One witness who was at the railway station in Winterhur on Thursday morning, a small city in the Zurich canton on the Swiss Plateau, toldd the paper that: “I heard a man behind me shout ‘Allahu Akbar’ five or six times, very emotionally and agitatedly” and that he witnessed children running for cover. Another witness, a taxi driver, noted how quickly police already patrolling at the railway station were able to respond. He said: “I saw him rush out of the ramp and try to stab a man… a passerby fought back with all his might… If those security forces hadn’t come out of the station so quickly, I don’t know what would have happened.”
Britain’s Daily Telegraph notes that while Switzerland as a whole has avoided the waves of Islamist terrorism that have swept over Europe these past 20 years, of its cities Winterhur is one with among the greatest concern about Islamism. The city was previously host to a controversial mosque which was raided by police in 2016 over calls for murder by its Somalian-born Imam. The mosque was associated with numbers of young men who travelled to join the Islamic State in Syria, and it was later shut down.
This story is developing, more follows.
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