German police arrest suspect in stabbing rampage
PHOTO CAPTION: Karlsruhe, August 25, 2024. REUTERS/Heiko Becker
By Tom Sims and Rene Wagner
FRANKFURT (Reuters) -German police said they were holding a 26-year-old Syrian man in custody on Sunday after a knife attack in the city of Solingen in which three people were killed and eight injured, adding that they were looking into the suspect's possible links with Islamic State.
The incident, along with the militant group's claim of responsibility, sparked concern among some politicians who urged enhanced security, tighter curbs on weapons, stiffer punishment for violent crimes, and limits to immigration.
The attack occurred during a festival on Friday evening in a market square where live bands were playing to celebrate Solingen's 650-year history. Mourners made a makeshift memorial near the scene.
The suspect turned himself in late on Saturday and admitted to the crime, Duesseldorf police and prosecutors said in a joint statement early on Sunday.
German federal prosecutors identified the Syrian man as Issa Al H., omitting his family name because of German privacy laws, and said he was suspected of being a member of Islamic State.
Prosecutors said "due to his radical Islamist convictions" he tried to kill as many people as possible that he considered to be non-believers, stabbing them repeatedly in the neck and upper body.
Friedrich Merz, a prominent politician who leads the opposition, centre-right CDU party, said the country should stop admitting further refugees from Syria and Afghanistan.
"It's enough!" he said in a letter on his website.
The suspect came from a home for refugees in Solingen that was searched on Saturday, North Rhine-Westphalia's interior minister, Herbert Reul, said.
Der Spiegel magazine, citing unidentified security sources, said the suspect had moved to Germany late in 2022 and sought asylum.
The Islamic State group described the man who carried out the attack as a "soldier of the Islamic State" in a statement on its Telegram account on Saturday.
On Sunday, the group posted two clips on its Telegram account of what it said was the attacker. The first purportedly showed the masked man pledging allegiance to the Islamic State leader, and the second, in which his face was blurred, allegedly showed him speaking moments before the attack.
Hendrik Wuest, premier of the state of North Rhine-Westphalia where Solingen is located, on Saturday described the attack as an act of terror.
Germany's Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) has said there have been around a dozen Islamist-motivated attacks since 2000. One of the biggest was in 2016, when a Tunisian drove a truck into a Christmas market in Berlin, killing 12 and injuring dozens.
"The risk of jihadist-motivated acts of violence remains high. The Federal Republic of Germany remains a direct target of terrorist organizations," the BKA said in the report earlier this year.
(Additional reporting by Alexander Ratz, Andreas Rinke and Hatem Maher; Editing by Kim Coghill, Kirsten Donovan and Bernadette Baum)
