Police say the attacker is in custody after he was shot and wounded for failing to place down his knife.
Two individuals had been killed and several other others had been injured in a stabbing at an Islamic centre within the Portuguese capital Lisbon, Portuguese authorities have stated.
Officers had been known as to the centre simply earlier than 11am (10:00 GMT) on Tuesday the place they encountered a person “armed with a big knife”, learn a police assertion.
The suspect has been taken into custody after he was shot by police as a result of he didn’t obey warnings to place down his weapon.
Two feminine staff, aged 49 and 24, of the Ismaili Centre, situated not removed from the Benfica Lisbon soccer stadium, had been killed within the assault, in response to a report from TV station RTP.
A police spokesman instructed the dpa information company that the deceased had not but been formally recognized and {that a} “terrorist assault” was suspected, however with out ruling out different motives.
Native media reported that the attacker was a widowed Afghan refugee and a father to a few kids. Al Jazeera couldn’t independently verify the identification of the attacker.
Prime Minister Antonio Costa expressed his condolences and solidarity to the households of the victims and in addition to the Ismaili neighborhood in Portugal on Twitter.
It’s too early to invest in regards to the motives for this crime, stated Costa. “We’ve to attend for the outcomes of the investigation,” he stated.
Later within the day, Inside Minister Jose Luis Carneiro, stated that “all the things results in imagine” that the assault was “an remoted act”.
Portugal has been thought-about one of many most secure nations on this planet and doesn’t are inclined to expertise Islamophobic assaults or usually a excessive degree of crime.
Prince Karim Aga Khan, non secular chief of the world’s Ismailis, opened the Lisbon centre in 1998. It has exhibition areas, lecture rooms and prayer halls.
There are roughly 7,000 Ismaili Muslims residing in Portugal, a nation of about 10 million individuals. The Ismailis belong to the Shia department of Islam.
Many fled to Portugal from Mozambique, a former Portuguese colony through the African nation’s civil warfare which led to 1992.
