COPENHAGEN — The Danish police yesterday shot dead a gunman in Copenhagen who they believe was responsible for killing two civilians and wounding five police officers in two separate attacks over the weekend, leaving the nation’s capital in shock.

Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt said the shootings at a synagogue and a cafe holding an event promoting freedom of speech were terrorist attacks.

“Denmark has been hit by terror,” she said at a press conference yesterday. “There are many questions the police are still working to try to answer.”

“As a nation, we have experienced a series of hours we will never forget,” she said.

The dual attacks in Copenhagen had a close resemblance to last month’s attacks in Paris, which began with gunshots aimed at cartoonists of weekly newspaper Charlie Hebdo and followed with shots aimed at a Jewish target.

Mr Jens Madsen, head of the Danish intelligence agency PET, said investigators believe the gunman was inspired by Islamic radicalism.

The police said there was no indication that he had travelled to Syria or Iraq to fight as a jihadist.

“PET is working on a theory that the perpetrator could have been inspired by the events in Paris. He could also have been inspired by material sent out by (the Islamic State group) and others,” Mr Madsen said.

Investigators have identified the suspect and that he is someone who had been on the agency’s radar, Mr Madsen said at a news conference. He did not reveal the suspect’s identity.

The first attack took place on Saturday, when the gunman sprayed bullets into a cafe where a controversial Swedish cartoonist who had caricatured the Prophet Muhammad was speaking, killing one man.

Hours later, early on Sunday, a man was shot and killed outside the city’s main synagogue.

The police had released a photo of the suspect, dressed in a heavy winter coat and maroon mask, and launched a massive manhunt with helicopters roaring overhead and an array of armoured vehicles on the usually peaceful streets of Copenhagen.

The police said they shot dead the suspect near a train station in Norrebro, an area in Copenhagen not far from the sites of the two attacks. The shooter was confronted by the police as he returned to an address that they were keeping under surveillance.

There was no indication for the moment that other suspects were involved.

The police said he had fired at officers. Some local media said the police raided an apartment in the area.

“We assume that it’s the same culprit behind both incidents ... that was shot by the police,” chief police inspector Torben Molgaard Jensen told reporters.

Prime Minister Thorning-Schmidt told the media: “We’ve tasted the ugly taste of fear and impotence that terror wants to create. But as a society, we have answered back.”

She said all Danes should continue to “behave as we always do, think and speak as we want to”.

“A society like Denmark can unfortunately not protect itself 100 per cent from a mad person,” she said.

Swedish artist Lars Vilks, 68, who had drawn a 2007 cartoon of Prophet Muhammad as a dog at a traffic circle, was believed to be the target of the first attack at the cafe, where a debate on the role of art and free speech was being held.

Mr Finn Norgaard, 55, a film director, was killed, while three police officers were injured.

The gunman escaped in a small Volkswagen, later abandoned.

Hours later, shots were fired at a synagogue about a half hour’s walk from the cafe. Dan Uzan, 37, who was guarding the synagogue, was shot in the head and died later. Two police officers were wounded.

Again, the gunman escaped, this time on foot.

“He (Dan Uzan) was a member of the community, a fantastic guy,” Rabbi Bent Lexner, Denmark’s former chief rabbi, told Israeli Army Radio. “We are in shock. I am sitting now with the parents of the man killed. We didn’t think such a thing could happen in Denmark.”

The country became a target 10 years ago, after the publication of cartoons lampooning Prophet Muhammad, images which led to sometimes fatal protests in the Muslim world.

Many Muslims consider any representation of the Prophet blasphemous.

The Danish authorities have been on alert since three Islamist gunmen killed 17 people in three days of violence in Paris last month that began with an attack on Charlie Hebdo, long known for its acerbic cartoons on Islam, other religions and politicians.

Like other European governments, Scandinavian leaders have been increasingly concerned about the radicalisation of young Muslims travelling to Syria and Iraq to fight alongside violent jihadist groups such as the Islamic State.

The authorities have also been worried about possible lone gunmen such as Anders Behring Breivik, the anti-immigrant Norwegian who killed 77 people in 2011, most of them at a youth camp run by Norway’s ruling centre-left Labour Party.

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