A gunman armed with explosives entered the Estonian Defense Ministry on Thursday and opened fire, but police stormed the building and killed him, officials said. No one else was hurt.
Many employees were seen escaping from first-floor windows as the gunman detonated a smoke bomb and fired shots in the central Tallinn building.
Estonian Defense Minister Mart Laar said authorities should investigate whether the assailant had been partially motivated by the terrorist who carried out last month’s massacre in Norway that killed 77 people.
“That is something that needs to be carefully investigated,” Laar told Estonian national broadcaster ERR.
He was not in the building at the time of Thursday’s mid-afternoon attack.
Officials identified the attacker as Karen Drambjan, an Armenian-born lawyer who has held Estonian citizenship since the early 1990s. He was a member of the small, left-wing Estonian United Left Party that is not represented in Parliament, Defense Ministry spokesman Peeter Kuimet said.
Officials said they knew of no possible motive, pending an investigation by the security police and the Prosecutors’ Office.
Estonian Security Police spokesman Erik Heldna said the gunman had no connection to the ministry.
“He was killed in a gunfire exchange that took place between the assailant and police,” Heldna said, dismissing earlier reports that Drambjan had tried to take hostages.
Estonian Prime Minister Andrus Ansip described the incident as “extremely regrettable,” saying Drambjan had a “substantial amount” of explosives and rounds of ammunition on him.
“From the bottom of my heart, I extend my thanks to all of those people who helped solve this situation,” Ansip told reporters.
The attacker, who was known to the police but had no criminal record, fired several shots with a pistol, but was unable to move beyond the lobby, Heldna said.
Hasse Svens, a journalist working for Swedish broadcaster SVT, was near the building when the shooting started.
“When I reached the Defense Ministry, I heard several shots and a powerful explosion and also smelled the gunpowder smoke,” he told SVT by telephone.
The attack shocked the tiny, tranquil Baltic nation of 1.3 million people, where shootings are rare.
In Norway, a right-wing extremist detonated a bomb outside government buildings in Oslo on July 22, killing eight, followed by a massacre at a youth camp on an island outside the Norwegian capital in which he shot dead 69 people.
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia
ON ALERT: A Russian cruise missile crossed into Polish airspace for about 40 seconds, the Polish military said, adding that it is constantly monitoring the war to protect its airspace Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and the western region of Lviv early yesterday came under a “massive” Russian air attack, officials said, while a Russian cruise missile breached Polish airspace, the Polish military said. Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a series of deadly aerial attacks, with yesterday’s strikes coming a day after the Russian military said it had seized the Ukrainian village of Ivanivske, west of Bakhmut. A militant attack on a Moscow concert hall on Friday that killed at least 133 people also became a new flash point between the two archrivals. “Explosions in the capital. Air defense is working. Do not