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For the second day in a row, terror-plagued Europe has suffered an attack.
Eight people were stabbed — including a mother pushing her baby in a stroller — by an assailant in the center of Turku, Finland, Friday, in an incident that is still being investigated by local authorities.
#URGENT: Several people have been stabbed in the city Turku, Finland.... just east of Helsinki. Suspect shot in leg pic.twitter.com/g9R6yVKZYM
— Jason K. Morrell (@CNNJason) August 18, 2017
Though the official motives for the stabbing spree remains undetermined, the apprehended suspect is a young male described by authorities as “not Finnish,” according to a report. Later, police described the assailant as a “youngish man with a foreign background.”
NOW: AP is reporting there's been a mass stabbing in Finland, in the city of Turku. pic.twitter.com/BrtBUCKzhN
— Andrew deGrandpre (@adegrandpre) August 18, 2017
Two people have died from their injuries, and another six are wounded, police said in a statement.
LATEST: Two dead after knife rampage in Turku, Finland -
police hunt several possible suspects. MORE: https://t.co/5sYY1jM7Dk pic.twitter.com/3frscG86ch
— Daily Express (@Daily_Express) August 18, 2017
Finland’s National Bureau of Investigation, a police outfit that focuses on serious crimes such as acts of terrorism, has taken over the investigation. They will hold a press conference at 2 P.M. local time Saturday.
In June, the Finish Security Intelligence Service (SUPO) raised the terrorism threat level from “low” to “elevated,” citing intel on potential Islamic terror.
“The most significant terrorist threat in Finland is still posed by individual actors or small groups motivated by radical Islamist propaganda or terrorist organizations encouraging them,” SUPO said in the June statement.
Over recent years, Finland has imported tens-of-thousands of migrants and asylum seekers from the Middle East. A November, 2016 report found that at least 80 foreign fighters in Syria and Iraq had traveled from Finland.
As of 2015, the country had the highest number of foreign fighters per capita than any other non-Muslim country. About one in 1,400 Finnish Muslims travel to the Middle East to fight in the civil wars there. Finnish terrorists have carried out suicide bombings on behalf of ISIS, according to SUPO. Meanwhile, the number of Islamic migrants of concern to Finland’s security services continues to multiply exponentially.
The knife rampage comes just one day after a vicious vehicular jihad attack in Barcelona, Spain, that claimed the lives of over a dozen and injured over 100 more. The attack was later claimed by the Islamic State.
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