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German police suspect attack was directed at foreigners

Police sign blocks the entrance to the main train station following shootings at a shopping mall earlier on July 22, 2016 in Munich.

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Two men initially suspected as accomplices in the shooting who had left the scene in a auto were later interviewed and cleared, police said.

(Andreas Gebert/dpa via AP).

Police responded in large numbers to the mall in the northern part of Munich, near the city’s Olympic Stadium in the Moosach district of the Bavarian capital.

Update: 7:30 p.m. BST: A police spokeswoman confirmed multiple deaths in the shooting, Reuters reports. Situation after a shooting in the Olympia shopping centre in Munich is unclear.

As many as nine people were killed and 21 injured when a gunman went on a shooting rampage in a mall in Munich, in Germany on Friday.

Germany increased security nationwide, with enhanced police patrols deployed to the Austria-German border and special forces from Bavaria and surrounding federal states came to Munich as reinforcements.

Police said there were indications the gunman had been in psychiatric care and treated for depression.

There were also reports police found violent computer games at his home.

Ten of the 27 people injured in the Munich shooting rampage have serious injuries, Police Chief Hubertus Andrae told journalists Saturday. Security restrictions in the city have been lifted and public transport is operating as normal, Beck said.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel will chair a meeting of the national security council later on July 23.

The attack came just days after a 17-year-old asylum seeker went on a rampage with an axe and a knife on a train on Monday near Wuerzburg, also in Bavaria, injuring five people. The man who appears to be a shooter said insulting things about Turks, did not espouse jihadist ideology and spoke with a German accent.

“The motive or explanation for this crime is completely unclear”, he added. “This can not continue”, Trump said in a statement. The shooter was not previously known to police and there was no evidence of any links to terrorist organizations, Andrae said.

A video posted on social media appeared to show a man dressed in black walking away from a McDonald’s while firing repeatedly on people as they fled screaming.

“I looked in his direction and he shot two people on the stairs”, Zequiri said.

“I started to get texts from friends asking if I was safe”, he said. Please don’t be Afghani.

Lynn Stein, who works in the mall, described a chaotic scene when gunfire erupted.

“I heard a scream at first: ‘You shitty… foreigners”.

Franco Augustini, another local resident, said his daughter hid in the shopping center during the attack.

The police chief said the nine fatalities included young people and children were among the 16 wounded, three of whom were in critical condition.

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Some 923 offences against refugee shelters were reported in 2015, compared to 175 the previous year, according to figures from the interior ministry.

Germany 10 dead 21 injured in shooting at mall