Serbian police searching for assailant who shot and killed 1 police officer and wounded another

BELGRADE, Serbia -- An assailant stopped by a patrol in a Serbian border town opened fire on police officers early Thursday, killing one and wounding another, the interior minister said.

The incident happened just before 1 a.m. in the western town of Loznica, near the border with Bosnia, the minister, Ivica Dacic said. The patrol stopped a car with two people inside and one of them opened fire while stepping out of the vehicle, he added.

The assailant shot one officer in the chest and the other in the shoulder. Both were transferred to the local hospital but one of them died there, Dacic said.

Police have launched a search for the assailant using drones and helicopters. Dacic said the man was born in 1991 and has a passport issued in Kosovo, Serbia's former province which declared independence in 2008.

Serbian media later published a photo of the suspected shooter as the police search continued. Reports said heavy police forces were in the area where some roads were blocked.

No other details were immediately available. The zone around the border with Bosnia is known as a smuggling route for migrants trying to reach Western Europe through the Balkans.

In late June, an attacker with a crossbow wounded a Serbian police officer guarding the Israeli Embassy in the capital Belgrade.