Sweden's Foreign Minister Anna Lindh was stabbed in the chest, stomach and arms while shopping in Stockholm on Wednesday and underwent lengthy surgery as police staged a nationwide manhunt for her mystery attacker.

Police said her wounds were not life-threatening and she was conscious when carried into an ambulance on a stretcher.

There were no clues to a motive and officials would not say whether Lindh had received any threats.

At midnight she has been on the operating table at Stockholm's Karolinska hospital for more than seven hours and Prime Minister Goran Persson said her condition was serious.

Tipped as a future prime minister, 46-year-old Lindh has actively campaigned for Sweden to adopt the euro currency in a referendum on Sunday, but after the attack all parties immediately suspended campaigning.

She was shopping in the upmarket NK department store in the city center when attacked with a knife. Her spokesman said she received serious wounds to the abdomen with bleeding and damage to the liver.

People left flowers at the hospital and tributes poured in.

Police said they were seeking a man about six feet tall. They found the man's army jacket, cap and knife and were analyzing video footage from the shop's security cameras.

It was a shock to the relatively crime-free Nordic nation whose politicians, except the prime minister, walk around without bodyguards.

Attack on Open Society

In 1986 Sweden was traumatized when Prime Minister Olof Palme was shot dead on his way home from a cinema, just a few blocks from where Lindh was stabbed. His attacker was never caught.

"The attack on her is an attack on our open society," said Persson, who told a news conference he had urgently ordered increased security around King Carl XVI Gustaf, top politicians and major government buildings.

Kurt Malmstrom, the chief of the security police responsible for the safety of government officials, said security had been increased to the highest level after the attack.

"It is a failure that such a thing had happened to a person we are responsible for," he told the Swedish TT news agency.

In many smaller northern European states security for public figures is minimal, as was apparent in the Netherlands last year when populist politician Pim Fortuyn was shot dead. He took few precautions despite having received death threats.

"For the Swedish people it brings back all the old horrible memories of Olof Palme. It might mean Swedish politicians need guards everywhere they go from now on," said Green Party leader Peter Eriksson. "I sincerely hope it doesn't lead to that."

Lindh is a forceful voice on human rights who dubbed President Bush a "lone ranger" for going to war in Iraq. She criticized Italy's current EU presidency, saying Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi did not enjoy wide support.

German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer expressed shock at the attack and European External Relations Commissioner Chris Patten called Lindh "a brave and talented politician."

Lindh, married with two children, became foreign minister in 1998 after a stellar career in the Social Democratic party, which has ruled Sweden for six of the last seven decades.

Rutger Lindahl, politics professor at Gothenburg University, said the motive for the attack might be that her euro campaigning had "aroused strong feelings ... but it could easily have been a drug-affected person who saw somebody famous."

(China Daily September 11, 2003)