“data-script=”https://static.lefigaro.fr/widget-video/short-ttl/video/index.js” >
The Afghan man, armed with a knife, was neutralized by the police. The number of injured is uncertain.
A knife-wielding man killed at least two people before being neutralized by Portuguese police on Tuesday in Lisbon during an attack on the world headquarters of the Ismailis, a Shia Muslim community led by the Aga Khan.
“The attack left several injured and two dead so far.“, announced the police in a press release, specifying that the alleged perpetrator of the attack had been arrested after being shot and wounded by the police. The number of injured, however, was questionable, another source reporting only one injured.
We know it is an Afghan, a refugee.
Nazim Ahmad, head of the Ismaili community in Lisbon
The chairman of the National Council of the Ismaili Muslim Community, Rahim Firozali, said in a statement that “a man armed with a sharp object” had entered the premises of the Ismaili center in Lisbon and had “attacked three people (…) fatally hitting two of them and injuring a third“. “The attacker’s motives are not known“, he added. The man who carried out this attack with “a large knifewas admitted to a hospital in the Portuguese capital, authorities said. He is “alive and in custody“, said the police.
“We know that this is an Afghan, a refugee, who, in fact, for one reason or another, broke into the center“, testified on Portuguese private television SIC a leader of the Ismaili community of Lisbon, Nazim Ahmad. “We know that there are two dead, two women (…) employees of the center“, he added. The attack took place at the Ismaili Center in Lisbon. This community of Shia Ismaili Muslims established its world headquarters in Lisbon and its spiritual leader, the Aga Khan, obtained Portuguese nationality in 2019.
I express my solidarity and condolences to the victims and the Ismaili community.
Antonio Costa, Portuguese Prime Minister
The Ismailis, a minority current of Shiite Islam, form a community of 12 to 15 million people spread over some thirty countries. They have about 7000 members in Portugal. In recent years, attacks have multiplied, particularly in Pakistan, against Ismailis, accused by Sunni extremists of embodying a currentdeviantin relation to Muslim orthodoxy. “I express my solidarity and condolences to the victims and the Ismaili community“Reacted Portuguese Prime Minister Antonio Costa to the press, adding that he was”premature to make any interpretation on the motivations of this criminal 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 Afghan Community Association in Portugal, Omed Taeri, the alleged assailant is a refugee who “suffers from psychological problems” after having “lost his wife in Greece“. He would have arrived in Portugal a little over a year ago and was worried about the fate of his three children, he said in an interview with the CNN Portugal news channel. According to local media, the attacker is in his 40s and taking English lessons at the Ismaili center.
Read alsoWar in Ukraine: the National Assembly ready to accuse Wagner of terrorism
World Community Headquarters
The victims, two women of Portuguese nationality according to the press, would be a teacher in her forties and a student in her twenties. The Aga Khan had decided to set up the headquarters of his community in Portugal after an agreement signed in June 2015 with the Portuguese State providing for tax advantages and diplomatic privileges, in particular in exchange for investments in the fields of scientific research. and development. The last attack perpetrated on Portuguese soil dates back to July 27, 1983, when an armed group made up of five Armenians attacked the Turkish embassy in Lisbon, causing the death of two people. The assailants had perished in the attack.
The police said they were informed of the attack shortly before eleven o’clock (ten o’clock Paris time) and arrived very quickly on the scene. In the early afternoon, near the Ismaili center of Lisbon, hooded police officers armed with submachine guns were posted at the various entrances to this closed complex which notably houses a mosque in a northern district of Lisbon. Camped in front of the main entrance, the journalists followed the movement of the police cars and the black vans of the special intervention unit.