A gunman opened fire from a car in Kraków's main market square at approximately 3pm local time on Saturday, killing six people and injuring sixteen before police shot and detained him within three minutes. The suspect, a 25-year-old Polish citizen dressed in military-style clothing, used an AR-15 rifle for which he held a legal firearms licence. Four women and two men died at the scene, including one British national, three Polish women, and two victims not yet identified. Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk later confirmed that drone footage revealed the bodies of two women and one man — most likely family members of the shooter — inside his home, bringing the total death toll to nine. Interior Minister Marcin Kierwiński said the gunman was fascinated with far-right ideologies and held "very radical" and "ultra-nationalistic" views, a finding that will be subject to further investigation. Tusk called the attack an act of terrorism, stating: "Until now in Poland we haven't had such drastic cases of terrorism." Defence Minister Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz rejected rumours that the shooter was affiliated with the Polish Armed Forces, stating categorically the man "was not and is not a soldier" and "has never had anything to do with the military." Police chief inspector Marek Boroń confirmed armed officers responded within three minutes of the first report. Two police officers were wounded in the exchange of fire, one seriously after being shot three times. Twelve of the sixteen hospitalised victims are in life-threatening condition, according to Małopolskie region governor Krzysztof Jan Kleczar. Five foreign nationals are among the wounded, with the Portuguese Foreign Ministry confirming one of its citizens was injured. Tusk praised the officers' "heroic" actions, saying they "saved many people's lives." Poland will observe two days of national mourning on Sunday and Monday. Kraków mayor Łukasz Gibała declared a city-level mourning period until Wednesday but vowed the city would remain open to visitors, stating: "The square will belong to us again." Tusk issued a direct appeal to politicians across parties not to exploit the tragedy and warned against disinformation already circulating online. The attack raises immediate questions about Poland's firearms licensing regime — the shooter legally possessed the AR-15 used in the massacre — and about the monitoring of radicalised individuals with ultranationalist views. Poland's Internal Security Agency is now operating both at the crime scene and at the shooter's family home. UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham expressed solidarity, stating the United Kingdom "stands with the people of Poland." This is Poland's most lethal domestic terrorism event in modern memory and arrives at a moment when far-right radicalisation across Europe is an intensifying concern for security services. The three-minute police response likely prevented a significantly higher casualty count, but the attack itself — carried out with a legally held weapon in a crowded tourist square — will force a reckoning with how lone-actor threats slip through existing monitoring frameworks.
