Extremism Doubts on German train attacker’s nationality
More ‘lone wolf’ attacks feared
BERLIN, July 20, (Agencies): German authorities cast doubt Wednesday on whether a teenager who went on an axe rampage on a Bavarian train was really an Afghan refugee, saying he might have been from Pakistan.
Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere said the teenager was believed to be a “lone wolf” attacker who appeared to have been “inspired” by the Islamic State group but was not a member of the jihadist network.
“This is perhaps a case that lies somewhere between a crazed rampage and terrorism,” de Maiziere told reporters.
He said investigators were still trying to determine the true identity of the 17-year-old who was shot dead by police following the train attack in which he injured five people, two of them critically.
The Islamic State group released a video Tuesday purportedly featuring the assailant announcing in Pashto he would carry out an “operation” in Germany, and presenting himself as a “soldier of the caliphate”.
The video showed teenager “Mohammed Riyadh” -- knife in hand -- announcing in Pashto he would carry out an “operation” in Germany, and presenting himself as a “soldier of the caliphate”.
German authorities said they had authenticated the video.
However, security service sources now think he might have pretended to be Afghan on arrival in Germany in 2015 in order to have a better chance of securing asylum, ZDF public television reported.
Experts
In the IS video the youth uses phrases of a dialect of Pashto spoken in Pakistan -- not Afghanistan -- and experts have indicated that his accent is also clearly Pakistani, ZDF said.
A Pakistani document was also found in his room.
De Maiziere noted however that both Afghanistan and Pakistan had Pashtun communities and said German authorities had received an application for family reunification from the teenager for relatives in Afghanistan.
He added that investigators were also looking closely at accounts from the assailant’s foster family that he received a phone call Saturday informing him of the death of a friend in Afghanistan and whether his apparent distress over the news was a possible trigger for the attack.
Authorities Tuesday found a handpainted IS flag and what they called a suicide letter addressed to his father among the attacker’s belongings.
Locals described the assailant as “calm and even-keeled” and a “devout Muslim who did not appear to be radical or a fanatic”, according to Joachim Herrmann, interior minister of Bavaria state.
Police however said he wrote in the letter that the world’s Muslims “must defend themselves”.
Prosecutors said he shouted “Allahu akbar” (God is greatest) three times as he rampaged through the carriage.
Germany has thus far escaped the kind of large-scale jihadist attack seen in the southern French city of Nice last week, in which 31-year-old Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel used a truck to mow down 84 people.
That attack was also claimed by IS without the assailant having clear ties to the group.
A record 1.1 million migrants and refugees were let in to Germany last year, with Syrians making up the largest group followed by Afghans.
The assailant had arrived as an unaccompanied minor in Germany in June 2015 and had been staying with a foster family in the region of the attack for the last two weeks.
Meanwhile a family of tourists from Hong Kong hurt in the assault revealed graphic details of their brutal ordeal.
The elder daughter of the Yau family told local media that her parents tried to defend her sister’s boyfriend when the axe-wielding teenager attacked him.
“Originally the assailant was attacking my sister’s boyfriend and when my mother and father saw, they went up to get in the way and then they got injured,” Sylvia, 30, told the Hong Kongbased Apple Daily newspaper.
Her father and sister’s boyfriend are now in intensive care with serious head injuries. Her sister Tracy, 26, and mother, 58, were also injured, while Sylvia’s 17-year-old brother was unharmed.
Sylvia and her husband, who travelled to Germany on Tuesday night accompanied by officials from Hong Kong’s immigration department, told how their family had been enjoying their holiday before the attack.
“My father-in-law’s friends received pictures and said they were having lots of fun,” said Sylvia’s husband, who was not named.
In related news, Germany is likely to face more Islamist attacks, its interior minister said on Wednesday, although he played down any link between the government’s open-door refugee policy and Monday’s axe assault aboard a train in Bavaria.
Anti-immigrant party Alternative for Germany (AFD) has seized on the train attack to criticise Chancellor Angela Merkel’s migrant policy, under which some 1.1 million people entered Germany in 2015, many fleeing war in Syria and beyond.
“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,” interior minister Thomas de Maiziere said.