Afghan boy in German axe attack
Teenage refugee shot dead after ‘probable’ Islamist assault on railway passengers
AN AXE-WIELDING Afghan teenager attacked passengers on a train in Germany last night leaving three critically injured in what was described by officials as a “probable” Islamist attack.
Police shot dead the suspect, a 17year-old Afghan, as he attempted to leave the scene. According to initial reports, the suspect came to Germany as an unaccompanied minor and had lived in the Wurzburg area for some time, initially at a refugee facility in the town of Ochsenfurt and more recently with a foster family.
The assault in Wurzburg was the latest suspected terror attack in Europe after the atrocity in Nice last Thursday.
“It is quite probable that this was an Islamist attack,” said a ministry spokesman, adding that the attacker was reported to have shouted “Allahu akbar” as he stabbed people.
The attacker was said to have been carrying “weapons for slashing and cutting”, according to German media reports, including an axe.
Three people were “seriously injured” and one other person suffered minor injuries. Fourteen others were said to be suffering from shock following the attack.
“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,” said a spokesman for the Wurzburg police.
Police said they believe he was acting alone. There were no further details on the circumstances of the teenager’s death and police declined to suggest what the motive was for the attack.
“At this time, everything is possible,” the spokesman said.
Germany is at the forefront of Europe’s migrant crisis and has already suffered two attacks by suspected Islamist extremists this year.
They include a knife attack in Grafing, a town in the Upper Bavarian district of Ebersberg, in May, when a man allegedly shouted “Allahu akbar” before attacking four people and killing one of them.
In February, in Hanover, a 15-yearold girl identified as Safia S, stabbed a policeman in the neck with a kitchen knife in what prosecutors later said was an attack inspired by Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.
Angela Merkel, the German chancellor is under pressure to slow the number of arrivals of migrants after 1.1 million people entered Germany last year, fuelling fears about integration and costs.
The numbers arriving have fallen this year, helped by a deal between the European Union and Turkey that was designed to give Turks visa-free travel to Europe in return for stemming the flow of migrants.
On New Year’s Eve 2015, hundreds of sexual assaults were reported against women in Cologne, with police describing the perpetrators as young men, thought to be refugees, of “Arab or North African appearance”.
Europe is already on edge after last week’s attack in Nice, in which a truck
was used to mow down families celebrating Bastille Day on a pedestrianised promenade – leaving 84 men, women and children dead.
In a similar incident in August 2015, a gunman attempted to carry out a terror attack on a high-speed Amsterdam-Paris train.
Two off-duty US military personnel were praised for tackling and subduing the attacker.
Last night’s attack took place on a train travelling from the Bavarian town of Treuchtlingen to Wurzburg, which is about 60 miles northwest of Nuremberg.
The line was closed last night following the incident.
German security services are on alert and ministers have repeatedly warned of a possible attack.
More than 800 home-grown radicals have left Germany to join jihadist groups in Syria and Iraq and about 260 have returned.
Last month, three Syrian men were arrested in Germany over an alleged plan to carry out a Paris-style terror attack for Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant.
They had been living in the country posing as asylum seekers, it later emerged.
The 10-man cell was planning to carry out a large-scale attack in the centre of Düsseldorf ’s Old Town, according to details leaked to the German media.
Two suicide bombers were planning to detonate explosive vests near the busy Heinrich-Heine-Allee U-Bahn station, while gunmen were to open fire in an attempt to maximise casualties.
Last September, a 41-year-old Iraqi man identified as Rafik Y stabbed and seriously wounded a policewoman in Berlin before another officer shot him dead.
The man had previously spent time in jail for membership of a banned Islamist group and had been convicted in 2008 of planning an attack in Berlin against Iyad Allawi, the former Iraqi prime minister.