Police in Munich say they are hunting for a motive that might explain why an 18-year-old German-Iranian man opened fire at a crowded shopping mall and a McDonald’s, killing nine people and wounding 16 others before killing himself.
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Police said they were investigating a video in which the gunman is seen and heard exchanging racial slurs and profanities with another man.
Iran on Saturday condemned a shooting spree at a busy shopping center in Munich a day earlier, in which a teenage German-Iranian gunman killed nine people before committing suicide.
The shooting, which started at about 6 p.m. local time at the Olympia shopping mall, is over, police spokeswoman Claudia Kvenzel said.
French President Francois Hollande, whose own country has been repeatedly targeted in a deadly wave terror over the past 18 months, on Saturday branded the shooting a “disgusting terrorist attack” that sought to strike fear in Germany, Reuters reported.
“The motives for this abhorrent act have not been completely clarified”.
The Indian Embassy in Germany tweeted saying that all Indians in Munich are safe and they could reach out to the consulate in case of “any difficulty”.
Security forces asked residents to clear the streets while they began to implement the state of emergency in Germany’s third largest city.
The shopping mall where the shooting took place is located in what was the Olympic Village for the 1972 Munich Olympics, during which 11 Israeli athletes were taken hostage and killed along with a German policeman.
Police are urging users of social media not to upload videos and pictures of police responses to the shooting, so as not to aid the culprit or culprits.
Police said on their Facebook and Twitter accounts that there were three gunmen.
German news magazine Focus said the dead man and suspected gunman had shot himself in the head. Previous attacks in France and Germany were claimed by the Islamic State militant group.
Thousands of people had been crowding the streets and squares in Munich’s city centre in the afternoon, clinking glasses, eating sausages, and listening to bands at a beer festival.
Elena Hakes, wearing a blue traditional dress, had been with a friend in the Odeonsplatz square. On Monday, a 17-year-old Afghan wounded four people in an ax-and-knife attack on a regional train near the Bavarian city of Wuerzburg, and another woman outside as he fled.
Andrä also told reporters that sixteen people, including several children, were injured in the attack and three were in a critical condition.
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Though Islamic State claimed responsibility for the train attack, authorities said the attacker was likely to have acted alone. “The search is taking place at high speed”.
