Munich shooter identified as German-Iranian teenager; 9 people killed

PanARMENIAN.Net - A gunman who killed nine people in a shooting spree at a busy Munich shopping center and then committed suicide had likely acted alone, German police said Saturday, July 23, AFP reports.

The third attack on civilians in Europe in just over a week sent panicked shoppers fleeing the mall in Germany's third largest city as elite police launched a massive operation to track down what had initially been thought to be up to three assailants.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel will convene her security council on Saturday after the shooting, which came just days after an axe rampage on a train in the same German state of Bavaria and just over a week after a truck attack in the French Riviera city of Nice that killed 84 people.

"The perpetrator was an 18-year-old German-Iranian from Munich," police chief Hubertus Andrae told reporters, adding that he had no criminal record.

"The motive or explanation for this crime is completely unclear," he said, according to AFP.

Earlier, a police spokesman had said terrorism was suspected, without revealing any immediate indications of an Islamist link.

Armed with a handgun, the attacker opened fire at a McDonald's restaurant early Friday evening and continued in the street before entering the mall, killing nine people and wounding 16, according to the latest toll.

Andrae said there were young people among the dead and that some of the injured were children, AFP says.

A police patrol had shot and wounded the gunman but he managed to escape, he said.

The suspected attacker's body was later found about one kilometre (half a mile) from the mall, German DPA news agency reported.

"We found a man who killed himself. We assume that he was the only shooter," police said on Twitter.