Islamic State claims train axe assault, the first attack in Germany

PanARMENIAN.Net - The Islamic State group claimed responsibility Tuesday, July 19 for its first attack in Germany, an axe and knife assault on a train carried out by a 17-year-old Afghan refugee, AFP reports.

German authorities said they had found a hand-painted IS flag among the belongings of the asylum seeker, who seriously injured four members of a family of tourists from Hong Kong in his rampage. The teenage assailant was killed as he tried 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.

The assault on a regional train near the southern city of Wuerzburg late Monday left two of the victims critically hurt, said Joachim Herrmann, the interior minister of Bavaria state.

"We hope that those who were gravely injured make it," Herrmann told ZDF public television, Reuters says.

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.

The terrifying assault in Bavaria is likely to revive a heated national debate about integrating migrants and refugees after a record influx last year.

Read also: Ax-wielding Afghan teenager attacks train passengers in Germany