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IS releases video of Germany train attacker making threats

Fabian Hench, regional police spokesman.

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It was not immediately possible to verify that the man in the video was the train attacker.

The stabbings took place Monday night on a train shortly after it left Wurzburg for Treuchtlingen. Police fatally shot the attacker. The suspect has not been named.

Ohlenschlager said investigators were aware of a video and are now evaluating it to determine whether it was made by the suspect.

In the video, the teen described himself as a soldier of the caliphate and a martyr.

However, the minister said, he acted as a lone wolf and “the video does not contain any indications as to whether there was an order from ISIS”.

He added that it is not clear when the video was made.

IS’s Aamaq released a video that purported to show the attacker, in which a young man waves a knife toward the camera and says “I will slaughter you with this knife and will behead you with axes”. CNN has contacted Pakistan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and is awaiting an official reply.

The boy, whose identity has not been released, attacked people on the regional train near the Bavarian city of Wuerzburg on July 18, leaving five people injured.

“They (police) chased him up, confronted him, the attacker then was very aggressive and attacked the police officers with his ax”, Herrmann said.

German officials did not identify the victims, but Hong Kong’s immigration department said that among those injured in the attack were four members of a family of five from the southern Chinese city. Another woman was wounded after the assailant jumped from the train and fled. Bamberg prosecutor Erik Ohlenschlager said that at least two of the wounded were suffering from “acute life-threatening” wounds.

He said the incident shared some characteristics of a lone-wolf terror attack. He said the suspect had learned Saturday that a friend had died in Afghanistan. A Pakistani document was also found in his room.

A string of sexual assaults and robberies on New Year’s Eve in Cologne that prosecutors said were committed largely by foreigners gave rise to fears about whether the country could cope with the one million migrants it registered in 2015. He was taken in by a foster family two weeks ago, he said.

Germany absorbed more than 1 million refugees a year ago.

Besides the hand-drawn or painted flag, police found notes in Pashto written in Arabic and Latin characters in the assailants’ room, Herrmann said.

He listed security measures taken in recent months, including making journeys overseas to terroristic organizations punishable, and improving collaboration with national and worldwide security services.

Interior Minister Thomas de Maizière told reporters that the 17-year-old, who was shot dead after seriously wounding three people and inflicting minor injuries on a fourth Monday, had likely been inspired by ISIS propaganda-but that did not make him a member of the group. Like several other EU countries, like the entire EU, Germany is also a target area of global terrorism.

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“In one case a truck, in another an ax and knife – those are the weapons that society cannot logically eliminate, with which any person could equip themselves, which they could put to use at virtually any location at any time of night or day”, he said.

IS releases video of Germany train attacker making threats