In a posting on the animal rights activists website Bite Back Magazine, those allegedly responsible described how they smashed two windows with hammers at the burger restaurant at the Scandinavium Center, poured ten liters of petrol in and set it alight.

The posting continued, “We were in a hurry as the sun had risen and it was light outside, so we threw the containers with written ALF-messages on them and some lighted matches into the restaurant and it went up in a big fire instantly. Burn in hell animal killers and capitalists!”

Nobody was in the restaurant at the time of the attack, said to be around 5 o’clock in the morning, though damage is extensive. Police have confirmed that the perpetators will face charges of aggravated arson.

On the Bite Back website activists also claimed responsibility for other attacks in Sweden including a hunting and fishing shop in Nyköping where windrows and doors were destroyed, a Pressbyrån shop in Eskilstuna and another McDonalds in the same city, where stones and tar bombs used to smash windows in the fast food joint.

Bite Back was founded in 2001 by Nicolas Atwood, an animal rights activist in West Palm Beach, Florida, with a mission to “support animal rights prisoners of conscience and report on current events in the struggle.”