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Swedes wept and laid red roses to mourn murdered foreign minister Anna Lindh on Thursday in a wave of national grief and shock as tributes flooded in from world leaders.

Mourners leave flowers outside the department store NK in central Stockholm Thursday Sep. 11. 2003. Swedish Foreign Minister Anna Lindh died early Thursday after being stabbed by un unknown assailant while shopping at the Stockholm department store Wednesday afternoon. [AP]

"Sweden has lost its face towards the world," Swedish Prime Minister Goran Persson said.

In Geneva, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan hailed Lindh as a "great foreign minister, a great Swede and a great European".

In Washington, the White House said President George W. Bush and the U.S. people were shocked and saddened by the killing of a "tireless advocate for freedom and peace".

Lindh, a 46-year-old mother of two, was stabbed by an unidentified attacker in a Stockholm store on Wednesday. The Swedish flag flew at half mast outside the Karolinska hospital where she died from her wounds at 5.29 a.m. (0329 GMT).

Visitors wept and placed roses, the symbol of Lindh's Social Democrat Party, at the hospital, at the department store and outside the main government offices. A tribute from youth groups of political parties read: "We think about you, Anna Lindh."

Lindh's stabbing evoked dark memories of the killing of Prime Minister Olof Palme in a city centre street in 1986. For many, that assassination dispelled an illusion that the country was immune from political violence.

"The grief, anger and despair the murder of Anna Lindh evokes is indescribable," said Christian Democrats leader Alf Svensson. "What should not happen has happened once again."

World leaders paid tribute to Lindh, who had been a leading campaigner for her country to vote "Yes" to joining the European Union's single currency in a referendum on Sunday.

HORRIBLE IRONY

"The world on the 11th of September, with horrible irony, has lost another very substantial contributor to a better and safer world," NATO Secretary-General George Robertson said.

French President Jacques Chirac called the Swedish prime minister to express his "great sadness and consternation".

"The beauty that she had in her face was a representation of the beauty she had in her soul," EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana said.

Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Zivkovic said it was "terrible news", especially because Lindh had been in Belgrade on March 12 when former Serbian premier Zoran Djindjic was assassinated.

Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien called Persson to offer condolences.

South African President Thabo Mbeki said Lindh "personally contributed much to promoting international peace, and was seen as a great friend to South Africa".

Romano Prodi, President of the European Commission, was filled with dismay at the "blind attack" on Lindh. Foreign Ministers of nations including Britain, France, Germany and Russia also paid tribute.

EU ambassadors held a minute's silence during a session in Brussels. Sweden's national soccer coach cancelled a celebratory news conference after Sweden beat Poland 2-0 to win a place in the Euro 2004 soccer tournament.

Other political leaders in the Nordic region said security might need to be tightened. "This is a wake-up call for us in Norway," Norwegian Prime Minister Kjell Magne Bondevik said.

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