A 17 year old Afghan refugee has injured four passengers, leaving two in critical condition, in an axe and knife attack. Fourteen people are being treated for shock. This attack comes just days after the Nice lorry attack which left 84 dead.
It is unknown whether the teenager has links to IS, although an IS flag was found in his bedroom by authorities. Witnesses say the teenager shouted “Allahu akbar” (God is great).
Whilst trying to flee, the attacker was shot dead by police. A local man told DPA news agency that the carriage “looked like a slaughterhouse” after the attack.
According to IS-linked news agency, Amaq, the teenager was an IS fighter who “carried out the operation in answer to the calls to target the countries of the coalition fighting the Islamic State”.
The Interior Minister of the state of Bavaria, Joachim Herrmann, said that an IS flag had been discovered among the teenager’s belongings at his foster home in the town of Ochsenfurt. Herrmann added that it was too early to determine whether he was a member of a jihadist group or whether he was self-radicalised.
The Afghani teenager had travelled to Germany seeking asylum and had then been moved from a refugee centre to a foster family. The foster family are being interviewed by investigators.
Regarding those who died, the South China Morning Post believes the four were from Hong Kong; a 62-year-old man, his 58-year-old wife, their daughter and her boyfriend.
A source reported the father and boyfriend had tried to defend the victims from the assailant attack. Hong Kong Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying has condemned the attack.
This attack has done nothing to assuage the worries that Germany is leaving itself vulnerable due to the vast amount of refugees and asylum seekers it has taken in. Last year alone, Germany accepted over a million migrants, including over 150,000 Afghans.
The BBC’s Damien McGuinness says there is nervousness in Germany regarding Islamist extremists. In May, a man in Munich shouting “Allahu akbar” killed a man and wounded three others using a knife. He was later sent to a psychiatric hospital.
