Islamic State claims responsibility for knife attack in Germany

SOLINGEN, Germany: The Islamic State group claimed responsibility on Saturday (Aug 24) for a knife attack in the German city of Solingen that killed three people and wounded eight others.
Some 24 hours after the attack, police said they made a second arrest on Saturday evening as part of a police operation at a home for refugees in Solingen. Police said they could not provide more details on the individual or its connection to the incident.
Police earlier on Saturday detained a teenager who they said may be connected with the attack but said the perpetrator was still at large.
Describing the man who carried out the attack as a “soldier of the Islamic State”, the militant group said in a statement on its Telegram account: “He carried out the attack in revenge for Muslims in Palestine and everywhere.”
It did not immediately provide any evidence for its assertion and it was not clear how close any relationship between the attacker and Islamic State was.
Hendrik Wuest, premier of the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, described Friday evening’s attack during a festival in the city as an act of terror.
Police were conducting a manhunt for the assailant. They said they had detained a 15-year-old and were investigating whether this person was linked to the attacker.
“This attack has struck at the heart of our country,” Wuest told reporters.
Markus Caspers, an official with the public prosecutor’s office in Duesseldorf, told an afternoon news conference that “terrorism” couldn’t be ruled out because there was no other known motive and because the victims seemed unrelated.
A police official, Thorsten Fleiss, confirmed at the same briefing that the assailant appeared to aim for his targets’ throats.
“The perpetrator must be quickly caught and punished to the fullest extent of the law,” Chancellor Olaf Scholz said in a post on X.
Interior minister Nancy Faeser said security authorities were doing everything they could to catch the person and investigate the background to the attack in the Fronhof, a market square in Solingen where live bands were playing.
The city was hosting a festival marking its 650th anniversary in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, which borders the Netherlands.
Police had cordoned off the square on Saturday, and passers-by placed candles and flowers outside the barriers.
The German musician who goes by the name Topic said he was playing on a nearby stage when the incident occurred. He was told about what happened but was asked to continue “to avoid causing a mass panic attack”, he posted on Instagram.
He was eventually told to stop, and “since the attacker was still on the run, we hid in a nearby store while police helicopters circled above us,” Topic wrote.
Witness Lars Breitzke told the Solinger Tageblatt newspaper he was a few metres from the attack, not far from the festival stage, and “understood from the expression on the singer’s face that something was wrong”.
“And then, a metre away from me, a person fell,” said Breitzke, who at first thought it was someone who had too much to drink.
When he turned around, he saw other people lying on the ground amid pools of blood.
Solingen mayor Tim-Oliver Kurzbach said the whole city was in “shock, horror and great grief”.
“We all wanted to celebrate our town’s anniversary together and now we have to mourn the dead and injured,” he said.
Authorities have cancelled the remainder of the weekend festival.
Fatal stabbings and shootings are relatively uncommon in Germany. The government said earlier this month it wanted to toughen rules on knives that can be carried in public by reducing the maximum length allowed.
In June, a 29-year-old policeman died after being stabbed in Mannheim during an attack on a right-wing demonstration. A stabbing attack on a train in 2021 injured several people.
North Rhine-Westphalia’s interior minister, Herbert Reul, visited the scene early on Saturday. He told reporters it was a targeted attack on human life.
Solingen, well known for its knife manufacturing industry, is a city of some 165,000 people.