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Wuerzburg (Germany) (AFP) - The Islamic State group Tuesday released a video purportedly featuring a 17-year-old Afghan refugee who went on an axe rampage on a German train, injuring five people, two critically.
The video showed teenager "Mohammed Riyadh" -- knife in hand -- announcing in Pashto he would carry out an "operation" in Germany, and presenting himself as a "soldier of the caliphate".
Four members of a family of tourists from Hong Kong and a passer-by were hurt in the assault late Monday in southern Germany that appeared likely to rekindle tensions over the country's refugee influx.
German authorities said they had found a hand-painted IS flag and what they called a suicide letter among the asylum seeker's belongings. The assailant was killed by police as he attacked officers while trying to flee.
"The perpetrator of the stabbing attack in Germany was one of the fighters of the Islamic State," the IS-linked Amaq news agency said.
Amaq later released a video it claimed showed the attacker threatening "infidel" countries.
German authorities said they had authenticated the video.
- 'Calm and even-keeled' -
Locals described the assailant, identified in media reports as Riaz A., as "calm and even-keeled" and a "devout Muslim who did not appear to be radical or a fanatic", according to Joachim Herrmann, interior minister of Bavaria state.
"According to the investigation thus far, there was no evidence on site to point to him belonging to the Islamist network," Herrmann said.
Police however later found a farewell letter he apparently left for his father, who still lives in Afghanistan, in which he said the world's Muslims "must defend themselves".
The teen had learnt on Saturday that a friend had died in Afghanistan, which police suggested could have pushed the attacker to act.
"Now pray for me that I can take revenge on non-believers, pray for me that I can get to heaven," the note said.
Prosecutors said he shouted "Allahu akbar" (God is greatest) three times as he made his way through the carriage.
An eyewitness told DPA news agency that the train, which had been carrying around 25 people, looked "like a slaughterhouse" with blood covering the floor.
Germany has thus far escaped the kind of large-scale jihadist attack seen in the southern French city of Nice last week, in which 31-year-old Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel used a truck to mow down 84 people.
That attack was also claimed by IS without the assailant having clear ties to the group.
A record 1.1 million people were let in to Germany last year, with Syrians making up the largest group followed by Afghans.
The assailant had arrived as an unaccompanied minor in Germany in June 2015 and had been staying with a foster family in the region for the last two weeks, Herrmann said.
"We must determine what the motive was and to what extent he really belonged to the Islamist scene or self-radicalised very recently," Herrmann said, adding that the assailant had no criminal record in Germany.
- Political tensions -
In May, a mentally unstable 27-year-old man wielding a knife killed one person and injured three others on another Bavarian regional train.
Early reports had suggested he had yelled "Allahu akbar" but police later said there was no evidence pointing to a political 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 IS-inspired attack.
And police in April arrested two 16-year-olds over an explosion that wounded three people at a Sikh temple, in what was believed to be an Islamist-motivated assault against an Indian wedding party in the western city of Essen.
Bavaria is governed by the Christian Social Union, a sister party to Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservative Christian Democrats which had been vocal in criticising Merkel's welcoming stance toward refugees.
The number of refugees arriving in Germany has fallen sharply as a result of the closure of the Balkans migration route and an EU deal with Turkey to stem the flow.
Merkel's popularity has rebounded recently as a result but the Bavaria attack is likely to rekindle political tensions.
Herrmann however warned against tarring all asylum seekers with the same brush.
"It is undisputed that he was a refugee and if he hadn't been there, he wouldn't have committed this act. But I don't think that we should make blanket judgements in any way about refugees."
Wuerzburg (Germany) (AFP) - A 17-year-old Afghan refugee wielding an axe and a knife went on a rampage on a German train, seriously injuring four members of a tourist family from Hong Kong and a passer-by.
Here is what we know about Monday's attack that the Islamic State group claims was carried out by one of its "fighters". The group has also released video footage of the attacker making threats.
- How did the attack unfold? -
It happened around 9:15 pm (1915 GMT) on the train carrying around 25 people running between the town of Treuchtlingen and Wuerzburg in Bavaria, southern Germany.
Media reports identified the attacker as Riaz A. He boarded the train and soon after went to the onboard toilet, emerging moments later with the axe and knife drawn.
Shortly before the train pulled into Wuerzburg, the teenager began shouting "Allahu akbar" (God is greatest) and slashing passengers, gravely injuring the four tourists. One of them is in critical condition.
A passenger pulled the train's emergency break and the assailant ran to evade special police forces, who were deployed nearby by chance.
He attacked a woman walking her dog along the river while trying to evade police. Prosecutors said he shouted "I'll get you, you bitch" as he brought the axe down on the head of the victim, who is also now fighting for her life.
When he began to attack officers with the axe, the teenager was shot dead by police.
Witnesses said the carriage looked "like a slaughterhouse", with victims' blood covering the floor.
- Who was the assailant? -
Authorities said he arrived in Germany as an unaccompanied minor in June 2015 and was registered in the border city of Passau, a major hub of last year's record refugee influx.
He was placed in a shelter in the Wuerzburg region in March before being settled with a foster family.
Locals described him as "calm and even-keeled" and a "devout Muslim" who "did not appear to be radical or a fanatic".
However investigators found a hand-painted Islamic State group flag in his room as well as a letter, believed to be a farewell message to his father in Afghanistan, in which he discussed the situation of the world's Muslims, saying they "must defend themselves".
Riaz A. had worked as an apprentice in a bakery and had a good chance of getting a long-term training position common in German trades, Bavarian social affairs minister Emilia Mueller told DPA news agency.
- IS claims attack -
Soon after German authorities said they found the IS flag among Riaz A.'s belongings, the Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the attack and said he was one of its "fighters," an IS-linked news agency said.
"The perpetrator of the stabbing attack in Germany was one of the fighters of the Islamic State," the Amaq news agency said, citing a "security source".
"He carried out this operation responding to calls to target countries of the coalition fighting IS," it added, referring to the US-led coalition targeting the jihadist group in Syria and Iraq.
Islamic State later released video footage of the attacker but authorities said they were still trying to determine its authenticity.
The rampage appeared to be the first time IS has claimed an attack in Germany.
- Political reaction -
While the attack has the potential to revive a heated national debate on the integration of migrants and refugees, regional authorities were quick to call for calm.
"It is undisputed that he was a refugee and if he hadn't been there he wouldn't have committed this act," Herrmann said.
"But I don't think that we should make blanket judgements in any way about refugees."
Herrmann said there was no indication that Chinese citizens were intentionally targeted in the attack.
Federal justice minister Heiko Maas tweeted that the assault must "carefully investigated" and said "radicalism must be fought in all its forms".
'IS' axe attack awakens fears in idyllic German town
AFP on July 20, 2016, 3:40 am
Wuerzburg (Germany) (AFP) - Wuerzburg, a sleepy German university town nestled amid vine-covered hills, has become the unlikely focus of global media attention following a brutal axe attack.
Camera crews and microphone-wielding reporters were swarming Tuesday over a leafy cul-de-sac lined with modest cars and garden ornaments, just metres from the rails where an attacker left a scene of butchery aboard a regional train.
White-haired pensioner Richard Weis, 66, who saw medics carry some of the gravely wounded victims away through his neighbour's garden late Monday, was trying to find some semblance of normality by tending his plant pots between interviews.
"For something like this to happen in our home, in such a small town, after Nice just happened... it's just crazy. We'll have to work through it," he told AFP.
Although fears of a second suspect were quickly dispelled by a police search, "I left some lights on and locked the doors" before a short, fitful night's sleep, he admitted.
"It was a tough sensation, something like that right by where I live," said 20-year-old trainee kindergarten teacher Theresa during a cigarette break in one of central Wuerzburg's tree-shaded squares.
"At some point I went to bed, but I'd heard the shots, I'd seen the helicopter. I heard one more shot as I lay in bed," she remembers.
The revelation of the attacker's identity as a 17-year-old Afghan asylum seeker -- and seemingly beforehand an exemplar of the integration process, put up in a foster home and undergoing an apprenticeship -- shocked some in the area where he lived.
"There was never anything to call attention to the refugees, there were no problems," said 57-year-old Klaus Hamm, a resident of the riverside town of Ochsenfurt where the assailant had lived.
But while others were horrified by the details of the bloody act, they were unsurprised that Germany was the latest to suffer apparently random violence followed by a claim of responsibility from extremist group Islamic State.
"I assumed right away that it would be an asylum seeker before we knew," said Michelle Uwabor, selling tickets for sightseeing tours outside the baroque splendour of a 18th-century bishop's residence.
"Anyone is being allowed in here and we're practically being overrun. We have no control over who's in Germany."
Like many of the people in the streets of Wuerzburg, the 84 lives lost in the July 14th attack in Nice, southern France, was at the front of Uwabor's mind.
"Why should it hit others and spare us?" she asked, gesturing at the couples and families gathering on the sun-baked cobblestones outside the palace entrance.
"I think ordinary people will push for something to change in policy towards refugees," said teacher Theresa.
Germany let in a record 1.1 million migrants and refugees last year but the influx has slowed dramatically in recent months with the closure of the Balkan route used by many asylum seekers and an EU deal with Turkey to stem the flow.
There is no evidence to suggest that a teenage Afghan who injured five people on a commuter train in southern Germany with a knife and axe had ties to an Islamist terrorist network, Bavarian Interior Minister Joachim Hermann says.
A hand-painted Islamic State flag and Pashto-language writings found in the Afghan refugee's room - including a goodbye letter to his father and a text calling on Muslims to arm themselves - is evidence suggesting he "radicalised himself," Hermann said during a press conference.
German police shot the 17-year-old dead late on Monday after the attack, when he turned on them after fleeing the scene of the crime.
Police say they are still investigating whether he was motivated by radical Islam.
Earlier on Tuesday, the Islamic State extremist group claimed responsibility for the attack through the affiliated Aamaq news agency.
The teen was an "Islamic State fighter" and "carried out the operation in response to calls to target states in the coalition fighting Islamic State", the news agency said via its channels on the secure messaging app Telegram.
The teen's stabbing spree with a knife and an axe took place at 9.15pm on a commuter train near the southern German city of Wuerzburg. He reportedly yelled an "Allahu Akbar" (God is great) before being shot dead by police.
The Aamaq claim is typical of the way Islamic State has sought to claim responsibility for recent so-called lone wolf attacks. The claim is phrased in the same way as the group's claim of the truck attack that killed 84 people in southern France last week.
Analysts say Islamic State claims such attackers as members even if they have had no prior contact with the group, as long as they have pledged allegiance to the group's leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.
Official statements from Germany contradicted the claim of responsibility. Justice Minister Heiko Maas referred to the Afghan as a "lone perpetrator" who had "not coordinated [his actions] with third parties."
Four of the five victims of Monday's attack were members of a family of tourists from Hong Kong.
The 62-year-old father, his 58-year-old wife, their daughter, 26, and her boyfriend, 30, were injured, while the couple's 17-year-old son escaped unscathed.
Another person sustained minor injuries as the attacker was fleeing the scene, while 14 train passengers suffered from shock.
Three of the victims are still in critical condition, according to the Wuerzburg hospital where they are receiving treatment.
A witness who lives near the location where the train was brought to a halt told dpa the compartment looked "like a slaughterhouse" after the attack.
The Afghan is one of nearly 15,000 unaccompanied minors who applied for asylum in Germany in 2015, according to the BAMF agency for refugees. Many of them suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder.
He came to Germany as an asylum seeker "over a year ago", and lived in a home for young refugees until was placed with a foster family in a town near Wuerzburg two weeks ago, according to Hermann.
