Stockholm: Anna Lindh, Sweden's popular Foreign Minister who was stabbed repeatedly while shopping in an exclusive department store, died on September 11 morning, doctors and government officials said.

Lindh, who was attacked on September 10, was operated on at Karolinska Hospital for most of the night. She suffered severe internal bleeding and liver and stomach injuries.

Lindh was stabbed in the stomach, chest and arm, and police were searching for a man wearing a camouflage jacket who fled the store.

The death shocked a nation that has long prided itself on the accessibility of its politicians. Like many officials, she didn't use a bodyguard.

Police said they didn't believe the attack was politically motivated, but it stirred memories of the unsolved murder of Prime Minister Olof Palme, who was killed while walking home from a downtown movie theatre with his wife in 1986.

Agencies