A teenage attacker armed with two knives was shot dead outside Israel’s embassy in Belgrade early on Wednesday after wounding the police officer guarding the mission, Serbian authorities said, in an assault that has pushed the country’s terrorism threat level to its highest setting.
The attack happened at 00:15 local time, shortly after midnight, when the embassy was closed. According to Serbia’s Interior Ministry, a minor whose identity has not yet been formally established approached a member of the Gendarmerie — Serbia’s paramilitary police force — on duty outside the embassy and rushed at him with two knives, shouting “Allahu akbar”, Arabic for “God is great”.
“A minor whose identity has yet to be established, but who is believed to be from Šabac, rushed at a Gendarmerie officer and attacked him with two knives, shouting ‘Allahu akbar’,” outgoing Interior Minister Ivica Dačić said in a ministry statement.
Prosecutors gave a fuller account of the seconds that followed: a person dressed in black opened the door of the guard’s booth outside the embassy and charged at the officer inside, throwing one knife and hitting him in the left cheek. The officer, identified only by his initials D.S., then drew his service weapon and fired several shots, killing the attacker on the spot. Prosecutors said the shooting was justified and in self-defence, and that the investigation was continuing.
The wounded officer was recovering well and was expected to be discharged later on Wednesday, Dačić said, after he and Police Director General Dragan Vasiljević visited him. Israel’s foreign ministry confirmed that no embassy personnel were injured and that the incident was under investigation by the Serbian authorities.
Dačić said he had raised Serbia’s terrorism threat level to red, the highest possible grade. That means tighter security checks and a heavier police presence at sites of particular importance, including infrastructure facilities and places where large crowds gather. Heavily armed special police were seen guarding the embassy entrance and patrolling the street outside it on Wednesday morning.
What has unsettled officials most is who the attacker appears to have been. Dačić said he had been monitored by Serbia’s security services and was known to be a supporter of the Islamic State group, pointing to a black flag and the group’s emblem on his Instagram profile. Serbian outlet N1, citing police sources, further reported he was born near Šabac, was arrested in Munich in May on suspicion of planning an attack there, and was deported to Serbia in July. That account is unconfirmed by the ministry. If it holds, investigators must answer how a young man on two countries’ radar reached an embassy guard post with two knives.
This is the second attack on the same embassy in just over two years. In June 2024, an attacker armed with a crossbow seriously wounded a police officer guarding the mission — shooting him in the neck — before being shot dead. That attacker was a 25-year-old from a village near Belgrade who had converted to Islam and later embraced extremist views. Attacks of this kind remain rare in Serbia.
The timing adds two layers of context. Serbia itself is in political transition: the student-led list that won Sunday’s election, with longtime leader Aleksandar Vučić conceding defeat, has not yet formed a government, so Dačić and his colleagues remain in office in a caretaker role. And the attack came a day after Israelis voted in a parliamentary election, with the count still under way and neither main bloc near the 61 seats needed for a majority. Serbian officials have not claimed any link between the attack and the Israeli election, and none should be assumed.
Why this matters beyond Belgrade is straightforward. Embassies are among the most guarded buildings in any capital, and an attack on one is treated as an attack on the state it represents. The red alert is not symbolic either: it means more checks and more armed officers in public places. The case will also interest security services across Europe: a very young suspect, radicalised online, previously detained abroad, and still able to act. If the Munich arrest and deportation reported by N1 are confirmed, the debate will not be about the police response in the moment — on the prosecutors’ account, it was justified — but about what monitoring and deportation achieve when they did not prevent this.
For now, the facts are narrow and the unknowns wide. The attacker’s full identity has not been released, no motive beyond the shouted phrase and the alleged Islamic State sympathy has been established, and officials have not said whether he acted alone. What is certain is that one young man is dead, one officer is recovering from a knife wound to the face, and Serbia is, as of Wednesday, on its highest state of terror alert.
