<p>A Swiss woman who knifed a victim in the neck and grabbed another by the throat in a Lugano department store on Tuesday was a known jihadist who fell in love with a militant online and tried in vain to meet him in Syria, police said on Wednesday.</p>.<p>Federal prosecutors have called the incident in the Italian-speaking southern canton of Ticino a suspected terrorist attack and taken charge of the investigation.</p>.<p>"Police investigations in 2017 revealed that the woman had formed a relationship via social media with a jihadist fighter from Syria," the Federal Office of Police (fedpol) tweeted.</p>.<p>Turkish authorities turned her back from the border to Syria when she tried to travel there to meet the man, and returned her to Switzerland at the time, it added.</p>.<p>"The woman was suffering from mental health problems at this time. After returning to Switzerland, she was admitted to a psychiatric clinic," it added, saying she had not come to fedpol's attention in any terror-related investigation since 2017.</p>.<p>The suspect, a 28-year-old who lives in the area, was in custody after passersby subdued her until police could arrive.</p>.<p>One victim sustained serious but not life-threatening injuries and another was lightly injured.</p>.<p>Neutral Switzerland has so far been spared the kind of large-scale jihadist attacks that prompted France and Germany this month to push for tighter European Union borders after suspected Islamist militants killed eight people in Paris, Nice and Vienna within a month.</p>.<p>But it has identified hundreds of residents deemed a threat and militants who have travelled to war zones.</p>.<p>Two men arrested in the town of Winterthur this month over possible links to a jihadist shooting attack in Vienna that killed four people on Nov. 2 visited the attacker in July.</p>.<p>In September, a man Swiss media dubbed the "Emir of Winterthur" and described as a leading Islamist militant in Switzerland was sentenced to 50 months in prison for ties to Islamic State.</p>.<p>Federal prosecutors have said that a fatal stabbing of a Portuguese man in September in the town of Morges, in western Switzerland, was still being investigated for a possible "terrorist motive". A Swiss-Turkish national has been arrested.</p>
<p>A Swiss woman who knifed a victim in the neck and grabbed another by the throat in a Lugano department store on Tuesday was a known jihadist who fell in love with a militant online and tried in vain to meet him in Syria, police said on Wednesday.</p>.<p>Federal prosecutors have called the incident in the Italian-speaking southern canton of Ticino a suspected terrorist attack and taken charge of the investigation.</p>.<p>"Police investigations in 2017 revealed that the woman had formed a relationship via social media with a jihadist fighter from Syria," the Federal Office of Police (fedpol) tweeted.</p>.<p>Turkish authorities turned her back from the border to Syria when she tried to travel there to meet the man, and returned her to Switzerland at the time, it added.</p>.<p>"The woman was suffering from mental health problems at this time. After returning to Switzerland, she was admitted to a psychiatric clinic," it added, saying she had not come to fedpol's attention in any terror-related investigation since 2017.</p>.<p>The suspect, a 28-year-old who lives in the area, was in custody after passersby subdued her until police could arrive.</p>.<p>One victim sustained serious but not life-threatening injuries and another was lightly injured.</p>.<p>Neutral Switzerland has so far been spared the kind of large-scale jihadist attacks that prompted France and Germany this month to push for tighter European Union borders after suspected Islamist militants killed eight people in Paris, Nice and Vienna within a month.</p>.<p>But it has identified hundreds of residents deemed a threat and militants who have travelled to war zones.</p>.<p>Two men arrested in the town of Winterthur this month over possible links to a jihadist shooting attack in Vienna that killed four people on Nov. 2 visited the attacker in July.</p>.<p>In September, a man Swiss media dubbed the "Emir of Winterthur" and described as a leading Islamist militant in Switzerland was sentenced to 50 months in prison for ties to Islamic State.</p>.<p>Federal prosecutors have said that a fatal stabbing of a Portuguese man in September in the town of Morges, in western Switzerland, was still being investigated for a possible "terrorist motive". A Swiss-Turkish national has been arrested.</p>