German police kill Afghan teen after train axe attack

Police officers stand by a regional train in Wuerzburg, southern Germany on July 18, after an Afghan teenager attacked train passengers with an axe. German police killed the assailant after he attackeShow more

WUERZBURG, GERMANY // German authorities on Tuesday said they strongly suspected an extremist motive in an axe and knife attack carried out on a German train by a 17-year-old Afghan refugee that seriously wounded at least five people.

The assault on a regional train near the southern city of Wuerzburg on Monday left two of the victims – who are members of a family from Hong Kong – in a critical condition, said Joachim Herrmann, the interior minister of Bavaria state. The teenage assailant was killed as he tried to flee.

“We hope that those who were gravely injured make it,” Mr Herrmann said.

The assailant had arrived as an unaccompanied minor in Germany, he said. A hand-painted flag of ISIL was found among the belongings of the Afghan refugee, who had been staying with a foster family in the region.

“It is quite probable that this was an Islamist attack,” said a ministry spokesman, adding that the assailant had shouted “Allahu akbar” (God is greatest).

However he stressed that the investigation was ongoing and that the teenager appeared to have acted alone.

The assault happened around 9.15pm on the train which runs between the town of Treuchlingen and Wuerzburg in Bavaria.

An eyewitness who lives next to the railway station said the train, which had been carrying around 25 people, looked “like a slaughterhouse” with blood covering the floor.

The man, who declined to give his name, said he saw people crawl from the carriage and ask for a first-aid kit as other victims lay on the floor inside.

“The perpetrator was able to leave the train, police left in pursuit and as part of this pursuit, they shot the attacker and killed him,” a police spokesman said.

Mr Herrmann later said that the teenager was shot when he attacked police.

A special police force unit nearby was able to mobilise quickly, Mr Herrmann added.

The four seriously injured victims are members of a family from Hong Kong, authorities in the southern Chinese city said on Tuesday, adding the immigration department was providing them with assistance.

Germany has thus far escaped the kind of large-scale extremist attacks seen in the southern French city of Nice last week, in which 31-year-old Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel used a truck to mow down people leaving a Bastille Day fireworks display, killing 84 people.

In May in Germany, a mentally unstable 27-year-old man carried out a knife attack on a regional train in the south, killing one person and injuring three others.

Early reports had suggested he had yelled “Allahu akbar” but police later said there was no evidence pointing to a religious motive. He is being held in a psychiatric hospital.

In February, a 15-year-old girl of Turkish origin stabbed a policeman in the neck with a kitchen knife at Hanover train station in what prosecutors later said was an ISIL-inspired attack.

* Agence France-Presse