Photo taken on July 22, 2016 shows the site of the shootout in Munich, Germany.
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The GSG9 anti-terrorism unit was created after that attack, though the city saw a worse one in 1980, when 13 people were killed and more than 200 injured at the city’s annual Oktoberfest in a bombing blamed on a student with ties to a neo-Nazi group.
Munich, capital of the southern German state of Bavaria, was rocked by the attack. Because of witness statements and the analysis of video recordings, we assume that it was the wanted suspect.
Authorities are evacuating people from the Olympia mall but many others are still hiding inside.
Lauretta said that the gunman yelled, “Allah Akbar”, and added, “I know this because I’m Muslim”.
Munich police said on Facebook that witnesses reported seeing “three different gunmen” but it was not clear whether they were referring to three separate shooters or the same shooter at three different locations.
The pistol-wielding attacker, identified by Munich Police Chief Hubertus Andrae as a dual national, was later found dead of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound to his head. The first report came at 6 pm, the shooting apparently began at a McDonald’s in the shopping centre.
“We found a man who killed himself”.
“We entered McDonald’s to eat… then there was panic, and people ran out”, one woman told Bavarian television.
While the manhunt was still under way police had called on residents of Germany’s third-largest city to stay indoors, throwing the economic hub into lockdown.
Police walks inside a subyay station Karlsplatz (Stachus) near a shopping mall following a shooting on Friday in Munich.
Andrae said the attacker had shouted out during his spree, without elaborating, while some media suggested it was a jihadist slogan. “The investigations will be running on all cylinders through the night”, Mr Andrae said.
A string of recent terror attacks have put Europe on high alert. Earlier this week, a 17-year-old Afghan immigrant attacked people on a train with sharp objects, critically injuring almost five people.
Previous attacks in France and Germany were claimed by IS. He said it was too early to label the attack an act of terrorism, though police had used the term earlier to describe the nature of their operation, which included calling in the elite GSG9 special operations force.
The mall is next door to the Munich Olympic stadium, where the Palestinian terrorist group Black September took 11 Israeli athletes hostage and eventually killed them during the 1972 Olympic Games.
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External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj had spoken to Indian Ambassador in Germany and confirmed that no Indian has been harmed in the attack.
