German
police kill Afghan teen after train axe attack
Berlin - German police shot dead a 17-year-old Afghan refugee Monday dead
after he attacked train passengers with an axe and a knife, seriously wounding
four in what one official said was a "probable" Islamist attack.
Several other people were also injured in the assault on a regional
train near the southern city of Wuerzburg, police said, adding that the
teenager was killed as he tried to flee.
Joachim Herrmann, the interior minister of Bavaria state, said the
assailant had arrived as an unaccompanied minor in Germany and had lived at
first in a shelter and then more recently with a foster family in nearby
Ochsenfurt.
"It is quite probable that this was an Islamist attack," said
a ministry spokesman, adding that the assailant had shouted "Allahu
akbar" (God is greatest).
However he stressed that the investigation was ongoing and that the
teenager appeared to have acted alone.
The attack happened around 9:15 pm (1915 GMT) on the train, which runs
between Treuchlingen and Wuerzburg in Bavaria.
An eyewitness who lives next to the railway station told DPA news agency
that the train, which had been carrying around 25 people, looked "like a
slaughterhouse" with blood covering the floor.
The man, who declined to give his name, said he saw people crawl from
the carriage and ask for a first-aid kit as other victims lay on the floor
inside.
"The perpetrator was able to leave the train, police left in
pursuit and as part of this pursuit, they shot the attacker and killed
him," a police spokesman said.
Herrmann later said that the teenager was shot when he attacked police
while trying to escape the scene.
A special police force unit happened to be nearby and was able to
mobilise quickly, Hermann added.
Four of those injured are members of a family from Hong Kong,
authorities in the southern Chinese city said Tuesday, adding the immigration
department was providing them with assistance.
Germany has thus far escaped the kind of large-scale jihadist attacks
seen in the southern French city of Nice last week, in which 31-year-old
Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel used a truck to mow down people leaving a Bastille
Day fireworks display, killing 84 people. The attack was claimed by the Islamic
State group.
In May in Germany, a mentally unstable 27-year-old man carried out a
knife attack on a regional train in the south, killing one person and injuring
three others.
Early reports had suggested he had yelled "Allahu akbar" but
police later said there was no evidence pointing to a religious motive. He is
being held in a psychiatric hospital.
Germany let in a record nearly 1.1 million asylum seekers last year,
with Syrians the largest group followed by Afghans fleeing ongoing turmoil and
poverty in their country.
However the number of refugees arriving in Germany has fallen sharply as
a result of the closure of the Balkans migration route and an EU deal with
Turkey to stem the flow.
In April, May and June, the number was around 16,000 each month, less
than a fifth of the tally seen at the start of the year, according to official
figures.
Bavaria is governed by the Christian Social Union (CSU), sister party to
Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservative Christian Democrats.
The CSU has been loudly critical of Merkel's welcoming stance toward
asylum seekers, a split that threatened the unity of the ruling coalition in
Berlin and sent the government's approval ratings plunging.
It has also lent support to a right-wing populist party, Alternative for
Germany, which was founded as a eurosceptic protest outfit in 2013 but now
mainly rails against Islam and Germany's refugee influx.
It currently polls at around 10 percent and is represented in half of
Germany's 16 states as well as the European Parliament. Merkel's popularity has rebounded recently but the attack in Bavaria is
likely to revive political tensions.
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