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ISIS Claims Responsibility for Ax Attack on German Train Afghan Teenager Spoke of Friend’s Death Before Ax Attack in Germany
(about 9 hours later)
WÜRZBURG, Germany — The Islamic State claimed responsibility on Tuesday for a rampage by a 17-year-old Afghan migrant who attacked passengers on a regional train in southern Germany with an ax, and then seriously injured a woman who was walking her dog, before he was killed by the police. WÜRZBURG, Germany — Over the weekend, an Afghan teenager who had arrived as a refugee last year told confidants in Germany that he had lost a close friend in Afghanistan, but who had been killed, and how and where, remained unclear.
The train attack, around 9 p.m. Monday near Würzburg in Bavaria, wounded four visitors from Hong Kong, two of them critically. The woman walking her dog was hospitalized with serious injuries. The news seemed to unhinge the 17-year-old, who had been specially selected for foster care because he seemed to be adjusting well to his new life in Germany. His foster family noticed that the normally quiet young man appeared agitated and that he spent a lot of time on his phone.
The attack intensified fears in Germany that the huge influx of migrants and refugees could pose a security threat. But when he told them on Monday that he was going out for a bike ride and might be gone for a while, they had no inkling that he had left armed with an ax and a knife, determined to carry out a brutal attack in the name of the Islamic State.
“The brutality and unrestrained readiness to use violence that is reflected by this act has shocked me deeply,” said Horst Seehofer, the governor of the southern state of Bavaria and an ally but occasional critic of Chancellor Angela Merkel, at a cabinet meeting. Justice Minister Heiko Maas called on Germans “to fight radicalism, regardless of where it comes from.” Hours later, five people were hospitalized — two of them critically — after the teenager slashed them about the head and torso on a passenger train, shouting “Allahu akbar,” or God is Great. The Afghan teenager, whom officials did not identify, then fled and attacked a woman walking her dog before he was cornered and killed by the German police.
On Tuesday afternoon, the Islamic State released a video with Arabic subtitles of a young man, who appeared to be the one who carried out the attack, reciting a jihadist manifesto. Coming just days after a Tunisian man ran over and killed 84 people at a Bastille Day celebration in France, the assault in a quiet corner of Germany has once again raised questions about the lure of the Islamic State, for the mentally unstable or distraught who are willing to carry out violence.
In the video, the young man said in Pashto, one of the major languages of Afghanistan, “I will do a martyrdom operation in Germany today,” and pledged allegiance to the Islamic State. He said that Islamic State fighters had settled in “infidel” countries and vowed: “God willing, you will be targeted in your villages, in your cities, in your airports, in your streets. The Islamic caliphate is strong enough to target you everywhere, even in your Parliament.” He also urged Muslims to “wake up and support the caliphate,” and to pledge allegiance to the Islamic State’s leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. Erik Ohlenschlager, the chief prosecutor in Bamberg, who gave the preliminary account of the episode at a news conference in Würzburg, said that the authorities were concerned at the speed with which the young Afghan appeared to have radicalized. He insisted that pending the outcome of their investigation, they could not confirm a link to the Islamic State, which released a video and claimed responsibility for the attack.
Erik Ohlenschlager, the chief prosecutor in Bamberg, said at a news conference in Würzburg that the authorities were examining the video to determine if the young man in the video was the teenager who carried out the attack. “We are aware of the video and are checking whether the identity of the person in it can be confirmed,” Mr. Ohlenschlager said. “It needs to be checked and the content to be analyzed.”
Hours earlier, in a bulletin issued in Arabic and English via its Amaq News Agency, the Islamic State claimed responsibility for the ax attack. It called the Afghan teenager an “Islamic State soldier,” using language similar to its claim of responsibility for the Bastille Day attack in Nice, France, that killed 84 people on Thursday. Yet Mr. Ohlenschlager said investigators had already found clues that the attacker sympathized with the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL. They included a hand-drawn flag of the Islamic State found in a notebook in his room and an Islamic State symbol printed on the T-shirt he wore during the attack.
The statement added that he had acted in response to the Islamic State’s call to target members of the American-led coalition that is fighting the group in Iraq and Syria. Like his foster family, social workers and teachers who worked with the 17-year-old described him as a religious Muslim, though they said he had not stood out in any way since arriving in Germany on June 30, 2015.
The German authorities said that investigators had found a hand-drawn flag of the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL, in the room of the Afghan teenager, along with notes in Pashto indicating that he might have been self-radicalized. He was learning German and was considered well enough integrated to move from the group home he had shared with other unaccompanied minor refugees in Ochsenfurt to live with a foster family.
Approximately 1.5 million migrants have applied for asylum in Germany in the past 18 months, but the enthusiastic welcome they initially received has given way to one of increasing concern as the euphoria of generosity is overshadowed by the difficult reality of integration. “Politically, he was a completely blank page,” Lothar Köhler, who is leading the investigation for the Bavarian state police, said on Tuesday. He said that investigators had learned from people close to the attacker that over the weekend, a good friend of his had died in Afghanistan, but that they had no further details.
Although the flow has slowed, Ms. Merkel has been under increasing pressure, especially after North African migrants were linked to hundreds of sexual assaults in Cologne on New Year’s Eve. “This really worries us, that someone who came here a year ago can become radicalized so quickly,” Mr. Ohlenschlager said.
According to the Bavarian State Criminal Police, the teenager entered Germany on June 30, 2015, without his parents and was registered in Passau. He received a temporary residence permit. It is not clear the extent to which the Afghan teenager was connected to the Islamic State. Even so, within hours of the attack, the group claimed responsibility in a bulletin issued in Arabic and English via its Amaq News Agency, calling the teenager an “Islamic State soldier.”
More than 60,000 unaccompanied minors were registered as asylum seekers in Germany last year, and more than half of the approximately 15,000 in Bavaria were from Afghanistan. It also released a video, showing a young man brandishing a knife and saying in Pashto, one of the primary languages in Afghanistan, “I will do a martyrdom operation in Germany today.”
Under German law, they cannot be extradited until they are 18 and are granted the same rights, such as access to education and financial support, as German juveniles who live on their own. The group claimed that the young man speaking in the video was the attacker, but German officials refused to confirm the connection saying that they had not yet had a chance to evaluate it.
Many of the young refugees are in group homes, but others have been placed in foster families. Joachim Herrmann, interior minister of the southern state of Bavaria, where the attack occurred, said the attacker had most recently lived with a family near Würzburg. Their own investigation turned up a letter written by the young man to his father, in Pashto, saying, “Now pray for me that I can take revenge on these infidels, and that I go to heaven.”
Michael Horlemann, who runs the department for youth, social affairs and health in the largely rural district around Würzburg, said that most of the 150 unaccompanied minors in the district lived in group homes, but 10 to 15 — who were selected because they seemed to be adapting well — lived in smaller shared apartments or with host families. The teenager was one of those selected, Mr. Horlemann said, adding that the foster families taking part were carefully screened. Yet it remains unclear whether the distraught and displaced young man had latched on to the Islamic State and its symbols only in recent days, after receiving the upsetting news about the death of his friend, or whether his sympathies were more deeply rooted.
The authorities believed that the teenager carried out the assault alone, but that has not been confirmed, said Mr. Herrmann. Experts who study how the Islamic State makes use of social media say the group is quick to claim success for even sometimes impulsive acts carried out in its name, and to prey on the propensities for violence of the psychologically disturbed.
Whether the teenager had direct contact with operatives of the Islamic State or was simply motivated by its propaganda remained unclear. “They are much more engaged with people than Al Qaeda,” Michael S. Smith II, a counterterrorism adviser with Kronos Advisory, said of recruiting in the West.
“The first emergency call to the police from a witness in the train said that he had shouted ‘Allahu akbar,’ ” Mr. Herrmann told the public broadcaster ZDF. “In searching the room where he last lived, a hand-drawn I.S. flag was found.” “They train their narratives and push them on social media, adding to the argument that one is compelled to act, whether by going abroad to join them or waging jihad at home,” he said.
“This must now all be put together in like a big mosaic,” he said, “to figure out what his motivation was and the extent to which he really belonged in an Islamic movement, or whether he became self-radicalized very recently.” Mr. Ohlenschlager, the prosecutor, said when the man entered the train shortly before 9 p.m., he was recognized by a social worker who knew him.
Alexander Gross, superintendent criminal detective of the Bavarian State Office of Criminal Investigations, urged the public to treat the Islamic State’s claim with caution, as many experts have also tried to do. But he brushed past her into the next carriage, where he locked himself into the bathroom. There, he pulled his weapons out of the bag he had carried and lunged into the next car, shouting three times as he plunged with the ax and knife.
“Just because I.S. is claiming this attack does not mean there is anything to it,” Mr. Gross said. “Right now, we have to examine in great detail who he knew and with whom he was in contact, in order to create a complete picture” of what motivated him. A family visiting Germany from Hong Kong: a father, 62, and mother, 58, their 26-year-old daughter, and her boyfriend, 30, were all injured in the attack and remain hospitalized. The older couple’s 17-year-old son was unhurt.
The train left Treuchtlingen at 7:25 p.m., with a scheduled arrival in Würzburg at 9:18 p.m. The attack occurred around 9 p.m. At 9:05 p.m., a passenger activated an emergency brake on the train, when it was in the Heidingsfeld district of Würzburg, and the police were called about 10 minutes later.
The teenager fled the train, and attacked at a woman walking her dog along the Main River. Then he encountered police officers, including special forces, who were responding to the emergency calls. He lunged at them, and they opened fire, killing him, Mr. Herrmann said.
Four of the victims were visiting from Hong Kong: a father, 62, and mother, 58, their 26-year-old daughter, and her boyfriend, 30. The older couple’s 17-year-old son was unhurt.
Hong Kong’s chief executive, Leung Chun-ying, condemned the attack and sent officials to Germany to provide assistance to the family.Hong Kong’s chief executive, Leung Chun-ying, condemned the attack and sent officials to Germany to provide assistance to the family.
“The two men are more heavily injured, particularly in their heads and torsos,” Kenneth Tong, a senior immigration officer, said before leaving Hong Kong for Frankfurt with three colleagues and four relatives of the family. “It remains to be determined whether we’d transfer them to Hong Kong.” “The two men are more heavily injured, particularly in their heads and torsos,” said Kenneth Tong, a senior immigration officer, while the mother and daughter are in stable condition.
The mother and daughter are in stable condition, he said. The social worker noticed the commotion in the next car and called the police, who were able to hear the shout of “Allahu akbar” in the background through the telephone during the call.
Germany has not experienced attacks on the same scale as Belgium or France, but it remains on edge amid threats on social media by Islamist extremists and the repeated targeting of its European neighbors. Several plots have been foiled by the police. Someone among the 20 passengers pulled the emergency brake and whether from confusion or panic, the young man forced open a door and fled to the nearby banks of the Main River, Mr. Ohlenschlager said.
In May, a 27-year-old German killed one man and wounded three others with a knife while shouting “Allahu akbar” — “God is great” — on a commuter train in a suburb of Munich. After questioning him, the authorities said that he had no known links to extremist groups and that they believed he was mentally disturbed. There he encountered a woman walking her dog with a friend, and attacked them, too. Lunging at her, he shouted an obscenity and bludgeoned her about the head with his ax, the prosecutor said. The woman is said to be hospitalized with severe injuries.
Fears that terrorists may have entered the country among the hundreds of thousands of migrants have been running high. With the attack coming days after a Tunisian man drove a truck down a street packed with pedestrians on Bastille Day in Nice, the assault Monday night could have wider political ramifications. The young man then slipped away under cover of the brush and weeds along the riverbank, but the local police, aided by an elite unit with a helicopter that had been diverted from another operation in the area, soon found him. As he tried to lunge at them, the officers opened fire, fatally wounding the young man, authorities said.
Mr. Ohlenschlager praised the officers and defended their decision, amid criticism from a politician that it was wrong to fatally shoot the young man.
“The attack of the woman walking her dog shows the level of violence that he was capable of,” he said. “It is a tragedy that the perpetrator died, but it would not have been acceptable to let him continue to carry out such violence.”
The attack shook the community of Ochsenfurt, a quaint town downriver from Würzburg. The police surrounded the group home where the teenager had lived until two weeks ago, one of some 150 unaccompanied minor refugees in the area.
Only 10 to 15 were selected to live in families, the result of adapting well and learning German, said Michael Horlemann, who runs the department for youth, social affairs and health for the wider Würzburg area.
Discussion of the fallout from the attack dominated noontime banter at the Orient Imbiss takeaway on the edge of the old town. The owner recalled the young Afghans, who would come and buy kebabs, and play a coin or two in the electronic slot machines, as polite and friendly, but very proud.
Another man, who would only give his name as Willhelm, said he hoped the attack would not lead to a more violent backlash against the 1.1 million migrants who arrived last year in Germany, which has so far been spared a large-scale terror attack, like those seen in France and Belgium.
“We have to hope that people won’t get all worked up about things and lose sight of what is at stake,” he said.