Asylum-seeker launches axe attack on German train passengers

A YOUNG Afghan asylum seeker was shot dead by German police after attacking train passengers with an axe and knife, injuring four people, two of them seriously.

Shocked passengers managed to alert the driver, who stopped the train in the Bavarian district of Wurzberg where the 17-year-old assailant fled on foot before launching an assault on a nearby police unit who shot him dead.

The attack took place on the Ochsenfurt-Wurzberg line on Monday evening and fourteen other passengers are receiving treatment for shock and anxiety after witnessing the frenzied assault with the suspect reportedly screaming “Allahu Akbar”.

Police are investigating the teenager’s motives amid revelations that a Daesh flag was found in his bedroom. Bavarian interior minister, Joachim Herrmann, claimed the attacker arrived in Germany unaccompanied from Afghanistan two years ago and had lived in a specialised centre for teenage refugees before moving in with a foster family two weeks ago.

Ascribing an explicitly terrorist motive to the attack is difficult despite the evidence of Daesh allegiance. Rather this latest incident seems to be following a concerning pattern of lone wolf attacks dedicated to Daesh as a twisted form of tribute, not specifically encouraged or enabled by the group themselves, the recent attacks in Nice and Orlando being prime examples.