Explosion rocks Malmö Jewish centre

There as been an explosion. Something has detonated – we are certain of that,” said police officer Erik Liljenström to local paper Sydsvenskan early on Friday morning. The police received a call shortly after 1am. Witnesses said they had heard loud blasts near the centre some 15 minutes earlier.

When police arrived at the scene they soon established that there had been some sort of explosion and that someone had tried to smash in the door.

There were loose paving stones lying among shards of shattered glass in front of the entrance, according to the paper.

While damage had been done to the front door, the building had not been damaged in any other way as far as the police could see, but according to witness statements the blasts were heard a few blocks away.

"I'm shocked that it's happened now; that it's happened at all. Jewish institutions are under constant threat, but we haven't noticed anything out of the ordinary recently," Fred Kahn, head of the Jewish community in Malmö, told the TT news agency on Friday morning.

Shortly after 4am, police announced that they had identified one of the vehicles and brought two men in for questioning.

Both of the suspects are 18-year-old, according to Malmö police, who nevertheless believe that more people were involved in carrying out the attack. (continue reading...)