Swedish police investigate potential online extremist links in fatal school sword attack

Swedish police are investigating whether an 18-year-old man who attacked students at a high school with a sword on Friday, killing one, was involved in online communities promoting school violence, a police source said.

The attacker struck at a school in the central ‌Swedish town of Fagersta, also severely injuring two teenage boys before being arrested by police. The parents of a 17-year-old girl told local newspaper Fagersta-Posten that their daughter was killed in the attack.

Police are investigating whether a TikTok account that posted a picture of a sword 20 minutes before the assault belonged to the suspect, the source told reporters. According to the Dagens Nyheter newspaper, the image appeared to have been taken in a ⁠restroom at the school.

Before it was taken down on Friday, the month-old account contained videos that referred to two ‌episodes of mass violence in Sweden and to Norwegian far-right mass murderer Anders Behring Breivik. One of the videos referenced a 2015 attack in which a masked swordsman killed a ‌teaching assistant and two boys at a school in Trollhättan, western Sweden, before being shot dead by ⁠police.

“The investigators are looking ⁠into various online communities which might have egged on the suspect to carry out the attack,” the police source said.

Political party leaders pause campaigning

Several ‌party leaders cancelled planned speeches on Saturday, pausing campaigning ahead of the September 13 election.