LUGANO, Switzerland — Two people were injured in a stabbing at a department store in Lugano which is being investigated as a possible terror incident.

Police in the Swiss canton of Ticino said a 28-year-old Swiss citizen who lives in the Lugano area attacked two women at the store before being stopped by a couple of clients and eventually arrested.

"Based on an initial medical evaluation, one of the victims sustained serious but not life-threatening injuries, while the other sustained minor injuries," police said in a statement.

The Swiss woman, who knifed a victim in the neck and grabbed another by the throat in a department store, was a known extremist who fell in love with a militant online and tried to meet him in Syria, the police said.

“Police investigations in 2017 revealed that the woman had formed a relationship via social media with a militant fighter from Syria,” the Federal Office of Police (Fedpol) tweeted on Wednesday.

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 said.

“The woman was suffering from mental health problems at this time. After returning to Switzerland, she was admitted to a psychiatric clinic,” Fedpol said, adding that she had not come to Fedpol's attention in any terror-related investigation since 2017.

Swiss federal police tweeted that the attack was presumably "terrorism" and that the public prosecutor had opened a criminal investigation. The prosecutors' office confirmed to AP that the incident was an "alleged terror attack".

Catherine Maret, a spokeswoman for the federal police, said the suspect was “known to police” and had “appeared recently in police investigations with regard to terrorism”, according to the AP.

Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz tweeted: "I fully condemn today’s terrorist attack in Lugano. My thoughts are with the victims wishing them a full & swift recovery."

"We stand with Switzerland in these difficult hours. We'll give a joint response to Islamist terrorism in Europe & defend our values," Kurz added.

Earlier this month a lone gunman killed four people in Vienna and injured more than 20 in a terror attack.

Norman Gobbi, a state councilor in Ticino, said that "extremism has no place in our community."

"Switzerland is a country of peace, but being peaceful does not mean being helpless. We are determined to defend the safety of our citizens," Gobbi tweeted. — Euronews