The Islamic State group released a video yesterdaypurportedly featuring the 17-year-old, who was shot dead bypolice following the train attack in which he injured fivepeople, two of them critically.
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The federal prosecutor’s office in Karlsruhe, which investigates terrorism, said it was taking over the case because of the Islamic State’s claim of responsibility and a video posted by the group in which he refers to himself as a “soldier of the Islamic State”.
On Tuesday, authorities said they had found a hand-paintedIS flag and what they called a suicide letter among theattacker’s belongings.
“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).
This story was first published on CNN.com, “ISIS claims responsibility for German train attack, authorities investigating”. Several others were treated for shock.
An eyewitness told DPA news agency that the train, whichhad been carrying around 25 people, looked “like aslaughterhouse”. He also said it is too early to speculate about the motives of the attacker, but confirmed the young lad was living in a home for unaccompanied minors.
The South China Morning Post newspaper reported that the family members hurt included the 62-year-old father, 58-year-old mother, 27-year-old daughter and her 31-year-old boyfriend.
He said the attacker acted in an “inhuman” way. “I am praying for them, and the whole community is praying for them”, he said.
In the 2 minute, 20 second clip, the young man, speaking in Pashto, waves a knife at the camera and says: “I am a soldier of the caliphate”.
Ahmadzai was one of about 60,000 unaccompanied minors who came into Germany past year amid an unprecedented influx of more than 1 million asylum-seekers, mostly from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan.
Hong Kong authorities, meanwhile, said they will offer all possible assistance to the wounded tourists.
Herrmann said people close to the attacker told investigators he had seemed to be a calm person, not overtly religious or an extremist.
In the Pashto writings found in his room, he expressed the hope that he would be able to “take revenge on the infidels and … go to heaven”, Koehler said, reading the translated statement aloud at a news conference.
In Hong Kong, chief imam for the city Muhammad Arshad said the attacker had defamed Islam and that the Islamic community in the city was praying for the injured.
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He said: “This is a tragedy, but it is really a tragedy beyond the people who are directly affected, because this is a very contentious issue in Germany, the way we are dealing with refugees”.
