Police shot and killed the 17-year-old Afghan boy, authorities said.
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The rampage appeared to be the first time the jihadist IS has claimed an attack in Germany.
German Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere arrives for the cabinet meeting at the chancellery in Berlin, Germany, Wednesday, July 20, 2016.
“What is clear is that we must keep tighter control over what comes into our country”, Herrmann told public broadcaster ARD.
Islamic State posted a video, described by de Maiziere as authentic, in which a man whom it identifies as the refugee vows to carry out a suicide mission and urges others to do the same. “Some of them may now be fighting for their lives”, Herrmann said.
A note found in the Afghan train attacker’s room where he also kept a hand-painted flag of the Islamic State group indicates he may have been self-radicalized, a top German top security official said Tuesday.
Last night, in Germany, a young Afghan man was shot dead by police after he attacked several people on board a train in southern Germany.
Officials have, however, stated the attacker was an Afghan refugee who had entered Germany past year with a wave of migrants, officials say.
This morning, ISIS is claiming responsibility for the attack.
The terrifying assault in Bavaria is likely to revive a heated national debate about integrating migrants and refugees after a record influx past year.
Bavaria’s top security official Joachim Herrmann said, while the Nice attack was “clearly another dimension”, in both cases the choices of weapons and targets made them “extremely hard to prevent in any fashion”.
The attacker fled the train when it halted at a station on the outskirts of Wuerzburg.
Witnesses said the carriage looked “like a slaughterhouse”, with victims’ blood covering the floor. As police drew near, the assailant started attacking the officers and was shot, dpa reported, quoting Herrmann.
The attack on the train in Bavaria left five people injured.
The teenager reportedly shouted the Islamic phrase “Alla-hu-akbar” (“God is great”) as he mounted the attack.
The Immigration Department said it will send a team of four officials to help the Hong Kong victims, who are being treated in three different hospitals.
De Maiziere said authorities were looking into the possibility that he might actually have been from Pakistan, but that other evidence speaks to his being from Afghanistan, including comments he made about a friend in Afghanistan having recently been killed – something authorities think may have prompted him to plan his attack.
Four people on the train were injured, along with a woman outside as the attacker fled.
This incident may aggravate concerns over the more than 1 million asylum seekers Germany let in a year ago.
The number of refugees arriving in Germany has fallen sharply as a result of the closure of the Balkans migration route and an European Union deal with Turkey to stem the flow.
Bavaria is governed by the Christian Social Union (CSU), sister party to Merkel’s conservative Christian Democrats.
Before ZDF reported on the questions over the attacker’s nationality, Bavarian interior minister Herrmann had warned against demonising asylum seekers.
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“It is undisputed that he was a refugee and if he hadn’t been there he wouldn’t have committed this act”.
