Afghan teen implicated in German train attack possessed Islamic State flag

BERLIN – A 17-year-old Afghan asylum seeker suspected of an ax attack on a German commuter train had a hand-painted Islamic State flag in his room, Bavarian Interior Minister Joachim Herrmann said Tuesday.

Herrmann said he would not speculate on terror ties to the attack, but the discovery suggested at least some interest on the suspect's part in a militant organization that has called for attacks on the West.

The suspect injured at least four people before being shot and killed by police, authorities said. It comes four days after an apparent jihadist-inspired attack in Nice, France, killed 84 people and injured more than 300.

Herrmann, speaking to Germany's ZDF public broadcaster on Tuesday, said that the suspect had no previous run-ins with German authorities during his stay in Germany, but he said that he could imagine that the Nice attack may have inspired a copycat crime.

According to eyewitness accounts, the young man exclaimed "Allahu Akbar" — Arabic for "God is Great" — during the attack, Herrmann said. But he said that additional investigation was needed to determine the background of the attack. "It all has to be put together now like a big mosaic," he said. The use of the phrase is common in Islamist-inspired terrorist attacks.

The suspect, an Afghan national who arrived in Germany as an unaccompanied refugee, lived in a group home for refugees in Bavaria starting in March before moving in with a foster family in a suburb of Würzburg two weeks ago, Herrmann said.

Three of the victims sustained serious injuries before the assailant fled from the train and was confronted by police officers in the southern German province of Bavaria. Two remained in serious condition on Tuesday, Herrmann said.

Four victims of the attack were members of a family from Hong Kong, according to the online edition of the Hong Kong South China Morning Post.

"I haven't seen this much blood in my life," the German Bild tabloid quoted an unnamed eyewitness as saying. Another told the newspaper that interior of the train looked like "a slaughterhouse." The newspaper published photos of the blood-smeared floor of the train. Bloodied tissues were crumpled on the seats.

Bavarian officials and local news accounts said the incident occurred after 9 p.m. local time on Monday on a commuter line that runs from Treuchtlingen to Würzburg in Bavaria province. The youth hacked and slashed at some of the train's 20 passengers.

After the passengers called for help, the train stopped at the town of Heidingsfeld, near Würzburg, where police backed by helicopters were waiting. Officials said immediately after the attack that the teen appeared to have acted alone.

The attack was likely to further strain German Chancellor Angela Merkel's national response to the wave of migrants and refugees who have flowed into Germany since the beginning of last year.

Faced with a human tidal wave last August, Merkel threw open Germany's doors, and many ordinary Germans greeted arriving asylum-seekers with flowers, food and clothing.

But attitudes have since soured as the nation confronts the difficulty of integrating the newcomers. A major turning point was at the beginning of the year, after an estimated 1,000 women were sexually assaulted during New Year's Eve celebrations in Cologne. The attacks were mostly blamed on men of North African and Arab origin.

The attack comes 11 months after a similar episode in which an Islamist extremist shot and stabbed passengers on a French Thalys train heading from Amsterdam to Paris. Four people were injured, including the assailant, a 25-year-old Moroccan national, who was subdued by a group of passengers that included three Americans.