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

• An 18-year-old man assaulted students at a Swedish high school with a sword, killing a girl and injuring two boys.
• Police are investigating the suspect’s links to online communities promoting school violence, including a TikTok account referencing past Nordic attacks and mass violence.
• The attack shocked the small town of Fagersta, prompting lockdowns, statements from officials and ongoing police interrogations to ensure student safety and support for victims.

STOCKHOLM – Swedish police are investigating whether an 18-year-old man who attacked students at a Swedish high school with a sword on Aug 21, killing one, was involved in online communities promoting school violence, according to a police source.

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 inside a toilet at the school.

Before it was taken down on Aug 21, 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 Aug 22 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.

Public broadcaster SVT, citing unnamed sources, reported on Aug 21 that the attacker, wearing a helmet and carrying a sword, was a former student at the school with a previous conviction for assault.

‘It was just a regular day’

“First it was just a regular day really. But then I saw a guy all covered in blood, at least down his back anyway. Then I saw the police and they flooded in,” one Brinell student, Nellie, told Reuters alongside her mother Agnes Strandberg after a five-hour lockdown at the school.

Another student, Abdulrahem Salmo, said he had seen a victim with a bloody stab wound in the arm.

“Then people called the police and we just all ran from there because we were afraid,” he told SVT.

Fagersta Mayor Asa-Marta Sjostrom said the small town was shaken.

“Our and the school’s main focus right now is to take care of our students and our employees,” she told reporters. “We are working together to create safety and provide support to those who need it.”

Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson cancelled a speech he was due to hold on Aug 22, news agency TT reported.

“Our thoughts are with all those affected,” he wrote in a post on social media platform X.

Sweden’s King Carl XVI Gustaf said in the statement released by the royal household that he received news of the attack “with dismay and sadness”.

Sweden’s worst mass shooting occurred in February 2025 at a school in the south-central city of Orebro, when a gunman killed 10 people before turning the weapon on himself.

In 2015, a masked swordsman killed a teaching assistant and two boys at a school in Trollhattan, western Sweden, before being shot dead by police, who later said the attack was racially motivated. REUTERS