Iran said on Saturday the global community should make fighting terrorism its top priority, after an 18-year-old German-Iranian gunman apparently acting alone killed at least nine people in Munich.
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Franco Augustini, another local resident, said his daughter hid in the shopping center during the attack.
“There is absolutely no link to the IS”, Munich police chief Hubertus Andrae said, adding that the suspect had been obsessed with books and articles about mass killings “linked to maniacs”.
Early Saturday, German police said the shooting at a Munich shopping centre was carried out by one gunman who then killed himself .
A later Tweet reported that a ninth body was found. Police are trying to determine if it was one of the attackers. “The investigations will be running on all cylinders through the night”, Mr Andrae said.
Investigators also found evidence that the Munich-born suspect had suffered from psychological problems and received treatment, but details were still being confirmed, Steinkraus-Koch said.
The gunman was identified by an official as Ali David Sonboly, an 18-year-old German-Iranian dual citizen.
Germany’s third largest city went into lockdown immediately after the shooting, with transport halted and highways sealed off.
“The attack is the third on civilians in western Europe in eight days”, says the BBC, “following the violence in Nice and Wuerzburg”.
Police searched an apartment in the neighborhood of Maxvorstadt early in the morning of July 23, where German daily Bild reported that the gunman lived with his parents.
“Germany’s one of our closest allies, so we are going to pledge all the support that they may need in dealing with these circumstances”, US President Barack Obama said on Friday.
Screen grabs as Munich gunman argues with bystanders and shoots at people on the rooftop of a parking garage at the Olympia Mall..
The nine victims killed in the massacre included adolescents, while there are children among the 16 people injured.
According to the Munich police spokesman Thomas Baumann, the shooting took place at a fast food restaurant at the Olympia-Einkaufszentrum Shopping Centre in the city’s Moosach district. At least ten people were injured in the attack, which took place at about 6pm local time (2am AEST).
“I started to get texts from friends asking if I was safe”, he said. “I tried to make sure that he looked at me, that his eyes are open”. “Fears grew with every attack in Paris, Istanbul or Brussels”, said the Abendzeitung newspaper’s editor-in-chief Michael Schilling.
German police are expected to hold a newsconference shortly.
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Lynn Stein, who works in the mall, described a chaotic scene when gunfire erupted. “Europe stands united”, European Union foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini said.
