Four dead by truck driven into crowd in Stockholm

Four people were killed and 15 injured when a stolen truck ploughed into a crowd of people outside a busy department store in central Stockholm Friday, police said, adding that one man had been arrested in connection with the attack. It was the latest in a string of similar assaults with vehicles in Europe, including in London, Berlin and the southern French city of Nice.
Children were among the injured, Stockholm's regional health care authorities said in a statement. "Sweden has been attacked. Everything points to a terror attack," said Prime Minister Stefan Lofven, who cut short a visit in south-western Sweden to return to Stockholm after what, if confirmed, would be the country's first deadly terror attack. Police had earlier released a grainy picture of a suspect they did not have in custody. Police spokesman Lars Bystrom refused to say whether the man who was later arrested was the man in the picture, and would not confirm media reports that he had confessed to the attack. Police had earlier said two people had been taken in for questioning.
Pictures taken at the scene showed a large blue truck with a mangled undercarriage smashed into the Ahlens department store. A spokeswoman for beer company Spendrups told AFP that the truck "had been stolen during a delivery to a restaurant." Witnesses described scenes of terror and panic. One witness identified only as Dimitris told the Aftonbladet daily the truck came "out of nowhere."
"I couldn't see if anyone was driving but it was out of control. I saw at least two people get run down. I ran as fast as I could away from there," he said. Another shopper, 66-year-old Leander Nordling, was at Ahlens when he suddenly heard a loud bang. "It sounded like a bomb exploding and smoke starting pouring in through the main entrance," he told daily Aftonbladet. He and fellow shoppers took refuge in a storage room inside the department store.
"After that the building was evacuated ... There were a lot of guards who took care of us outside and they urged us to leave the scene immediately," Nordling said. Video footage taken from above showed scores of people streaming down the street in terror. The attack occurred just before 1300 GMT at the corner of the store and Drottninggatan, the city's biggest pedestrian street, above ground from Stockholm's central subway station. Thick smoke billowed from the scene, while the area was blocked off by police and crowds gathering around the police cordon. Police vans circulating in the city using loudspeakers urged people to go straight home and avoid large crowds. The centre of the usually buzzing city was in lockdown, with the central train station evacuated and other stores quickly emptied of shoppers.