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THE HAGUE, Netherlands — Dutch police shot and wounded a Syrian man Wednesday who attacked officers trying to arrest him after alarmed neighbours reported that he was standing on an apartment balcony waving an axe and shouting “Allahu akbar.”

In a statement, police said the shooting happened in Schiedam near the port city of Rotterdam when police tried unsuccessfully to calm the 26-year-old man. When an arrest team entered the apartment, the man attacked them and stabbed a police dog, which later died of its injuries.

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Schiedam Mayor Cor Lamers issued a statement saying that the suspect was a Syrian who had been living with his father in Schiedam since last year.

“The man was known to several help organizations but this was an escalation we had not seen coming,” Lamers said.

The confrontation came a day after a man in Belgium attacked and killed two female police officers and fatally shot a passer-by.