Terror links to bomb blast that ‘wanted to murder officers’

Two officers were seriously injured after a suspected nail bomb blast left Hungary on a full-scale terror alert.

A major security operation is underway to find the ‘lone wolf’ operative police believe plotted the cold blooded attack in the heart of Budapest late on Saturday night (September 24).

The officers were on a routine foot patrol along a main thoroughfare in the Hungarian capital when the bomb detonated.

A 23-year-old female officer, known as the face of a nationwide police recruiting campaign, was left fighting for her life after sustaining injuries to her neck.

Her male colleague, 26, received serious wounds to a leg in the blast that rocked the city at a time when thousands of people were enjoying the weekend’s nightlife.

Karoly Papp, chief commissionaire of the Hungarian national police, gave a blunt reaction to the “deliberate” targeting of the officers with a homemade explosive device.

“Someone tried to execute my officers,” he said, adding that an investigation was now underway to find a male aged between 20 and 25, and that a reward of 10 million Hungarian forint (£28,300) had been offered.

“The message is that we will find the perpetrator,” the force commander added. “The manhunt has been launched and hundreds of officers are on the case.”

One central line of inquiry involves links to terrorism as the bomb went off just days before this Sunday’s (October 2) crucial vote when Hungary holds a referendum on EU plans to force member states to accept migrant quotas. The Hungarian government has attacked the plan, and has campaigned hard for Hungarians to reject it.

Witnesses described seeing an attacker waiting in a doorway before throwing the explosive device packed with nails at two officers as they passed by the building.

Zsolt Molnar, the chairman of the National Security Committee, said: “We haven’t yet received any confirmation that it was a jihadist attack, but we are still investigating every potential theory.

“It is clear that the purpose of the attack was to murder two of our officers.”