Stolen truck kills 4 in Stockholm; Sweden calls it terror

STOCKHOLM (AP) — A hijacked beer truck plowed into pedestrians at a central Stockholm department store on Friday, killing four people, wounding 15 others and sending screaming shoppers fleeing in panic in what Sweden's prime minister called a terrorist attack.

Officials announced flags at government offices would fly at half-mast Saturday to honor the victims.

The stolen beer truck traveled for more than 500 yards (meters) along a main pedestrian street known as the Drottninggatan before it smashed into a crowd outside the upscale Ahlens department store about 3 p.m. It came to rest in the entrance to the building.

Jan Evensson of the Stockholm police told a news conference that the man who was arrested looked like the person depicted wearing a greenish hood in a surveillance camera photo that police released earlier.

In connection with a delivery to a restaurant called Caliente, someone jumped into the truck and drove it away while the driver was unloading his delivery, Spendrups spokesman Marten Luth told the Swedish news agency TT.

In an attack last month claimed by the Islamic State group, a man drove into a crowd on London's Westminster Bridge, killing three people and injuring many others before stabbing a policeman to death.

Swedish King Carl XVI Gustaf cut short a visit to Brazil on Friday to return home and sent the royal family's condolences to the families of the truck attack victims.

Two days after his remarks, a riot broke out in predominantly immigrant suburb of Stockholm where police opened fire on rioters, a surprise to many Swedes who aren't used to officers using guns.

Friday's truck crash was near the site of a December 2010 attack in Stockholm in which Taimour Abdulwahab, a Swedish citizen who lived in Britain, detonated a suicide bomb, killing himself and injuring two others.