Swedish police scour online networks after teenage girl killed in school sword attack

STOCKHOLM- Swedish police are investigating whether an 18-year-old man who attacked students at a Swedish 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 Reuters. 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 mass violence attacks in Sweden and to Norwegian far-right mass murderer Anders Behring Breivik. It also referenced a 2015 attack, where a masked swordsman killed a teaching assistant and two boys at a school in Trollhattan, 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.

Prosecutors on Saturday ordered the man's detention on suspicion of murder and several counts of attempted murder.

"The investigation is at an intense stage. We are conducting interrogations and gathering information, but I cannot go into specifics," Prosecutor Ann-Sofie Trossing told Reuters.

(Reporting by Johan Ahlander; Editing by Emelia Sithole-Matarise)