ANOTHER DAY, YET ANOTHER TERROR ATTACK
At least nine killed in Munich shopping centre gun rampage
AT LEAST nine people were killed last night after gunmen rampaged through a busy shopping centre in Munich.
Europe was on high alert as German police said nine victims were dead. One gunman shot himself and it was reported two were on the run.
Police spoke of a ‘terror threat’, but amid conflicting reports it was unclear last night whether the gunmen were Islamic extremists or far-Right activists.
Witnesses described a man shooting shoppers at close range before fleeing into a nearby underground train station. Shocking video footage showed a man dressed in black calmly walking outside a McDonald’s on a busy road near the
Olympia Einkaufszentrum mall as the attack started at 5.50pm.
The gunman, who appeared to be armed with both a handgun and a rifle, opened fire without warning. Onlookers cowered as at least 20 shots were fired.
People could be heard screaming as they ran for cover in nearby buildings. German media said it was feared that children were among the dead. About 100 people were receiving treatment for gunshot wounds or shock.
A woman told CNN she heard the gunmen shout ‘Allahu Akbar’ as they shot children. She said: ‘I know this because I am a Muslim. I saw the shooting of children, who were sitting down to eat. They could not run.’
The shootings – which took place five years to the day after white supremacist Anders Behring Breivik massacred 77 people in Norway – came just days after an asylum seeker attacked five train passengers with an axe and a knife in the Bavarian city of Wurzburg, and a week after Mohamed Bouhlel, 31, used a truck to kill 84 people, including children, in the French city of Nice.
That was the third major attack on French soil in the past 18 months, after the jihadi carnage in Paris in November and the shootings at satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo and a kosher supermarket in January 2015.
Another video appeared to show the McDonald’s gunman yesterday on the roof of a multi-storey car park as panicked people tried to find safety below.
In the footage, he appeared to scream ‘I’m German’, ‘f ****** foreigners’ and ‘f ****** Turks’ before firing his weapon.
A 32-year-old man, who lives in a flat overlooking the shopping centre, said: ‘I heard loud bangs and from my balcony I could see two bodies on the ground.
‘Then I saw one of the perpetrators. He ran into the mall and on to the parking deck. In his hand he held a weapon that looked like a pistol. He walked around there and screamed that he was German and grew up here.
‘He yelled towards our building that we should stop filming, then he shot twice at the wall of the building. I think then he ran away. I heard even more shots.’
The shopping centre is next to the Munich Olympic stadium, where the Palestinian militant group Black September killed 11 Israeli athletes during the 1972 Olympic Games.
Munich’s entire public transport system was shut down last night and police warned people to stay in their homes.
‘There is a major police operation under way in the shopping centre,’ Munich police posted on Twitter, urging people to avoid the area. ‘Stay in your homes. Leave the street.’
A police spokesman said they were dealing with a ‘shooting rampage’. There was no immediate claim of responsibility but supporters of terror group Islamic State celebrated the rampage on social media.
Munich police said: ‘At around 5.50pm there were witnesses who called the police and said there was a shooting at Hanauer Street. The shooting moved from that street to the shopping centre. The witnesses said there were three different people with weapons. At the moment no culprit has been arrested. The search is taking place at high speed.’
At the shopping centre, staff and customers hid in stock rooms in fear of their lives.
A shop worker said: ‘All the people from outside came streaming into the store and I saw one person on the ground who was so severely injured that he definitely didn’t survive. We’re just staying in the back in the storage rooms.’
One witness said: ‘The man started shooting and then ran to an underground station. I think the police are now looking for him. I don’t know what is going on.’
Another said the centre was busy with crowds of shoppers. He added: ‘It is a Friday afternoon, a lot of people stop working in the afternoon and after that they are going to the mall and preparing for the weekend. There were a lot of people inside. It’s very close to the Olympic park and very close to the Olympic village where people live in the apartments, mainly students.’ Mall worker Lynn Stein told CNN: ‘I’m okay, I’m just a bit shaken up. I’m in safety. I was inside, I was going to buy something and my co-worker was still working and I heard the shots fired – several shots, I don’t know, maybe six or seven – and people were confused, they started running out. There was an emergency exit right at the shop I was at, so I ran outside as well. And then there were more shots.’
Dominic Faust was in another shopping centre in Munich when there were reports of a separate shooting. He told the BBC: ‘Two hours ago people came screaming inside the mall. Those people told us that there was a shooting outside and so the security closed the door of this mall and asked everybody to go upstairs to the fifth floor. This is where I am right now with about 150 other folks and we are asked not to leave the building.’
Angela Merkel’s interior minister, Thomas de Maiziere, dismissed claims the Chancellor had put the country in danger by allowing in more than a million migrants.
‘You cannot say there is no connection between refugees and terrorism, but the danger was high before and remains high, regardless of questions about refugees,’ he said.
‘Like the rest of the EU, Germany is in the target area for international terrorism. I have said for a long time that the situation is serious.’ Europol this week also issued a warning about the possibility of further attacks by IS and Al Qaeda.
A spokesman said: ‘Both groups have repeatedly called on Muslims living in western countries to perpetrate lone actor attacks in their countries of residence.’ More than 1.1million people claimed asylum in Germany after Mrs Merkel opened its borders. Last week, she admitted the flow of migrants into Europe had been ‘used to smuggle terrorists’.
The far-Right Alternative for Germany party said Mrs Merkel’s immigration policy had put the country at risk. Beatrix Von Storch MEP said: ‘Islamist terrorism and sexual assaults by migrants are the constant proof that Mrs Merkel’s policy
is endangering the country. We must speak openly and unsparingly about the reasons and the background of these terror attacks.’
A poll released hours before last night’s shooting showed that more than three-quarters of Germans believed their country would soon be the target of terrorism.
German President Joachim Gauck said last night he was ‘horrified’ by the ‘murderous attack’, adding: ‘I am with all the victims in my thoughts and all those who are mourning or fearful for loved ones.’
Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson tweeted: ‘Deeply shocked and saddened by Munich shootings. My thoughts are with the victims, their loved ones and all of Germany at this time.’