German Prosecutor Says Islamic State Terrorist Link Is Suspected in Festival Stabbings

[Pelican Press 0]

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

******* Prosecutor Says Islamic State ********** Link Is Suspected in Festival Stabbings

An ******* by a man armed with a ****** that left three ***** at a local festival in a western ******* city is being treated as terrorism, with possible links to the Islamic State, ******* prosecutors said on Sunday

The suspect is a 26-year-old man from Syria who was living in a ******** residence less than a few hundred yards from where the ******* took place in the city of Solingen, the police said on Sunday. The man, wearing bloodstained clothes, approached a police car and gave himself up after 11 p.m. Saturday, according to law enforcement officials.

The police said the assailant aimed for his victims’ necks to inflict as much damage as possible.

On Sunday afternoon, the federal prosecutor’s office said it believed the suspect, identified only as Issa Al H. in keeping with strict ******* privacy rules, had joined the Islamic State. Officials are also investigating him on possible charges of ******* and attempted *******, though so far no official charges have been filed.

The suspect “shared the ideology” of the ********** organization and “joined the group at an undeterminable” time before Friday’s *******, Ines Peterson, spokeswoman for the federal prosecutor, said in a statement Sunday.

The Islamic State took responsibility for the *******, praising the attacker as a “soldier of the Islamic State,”

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

to Site Intelligence Group, which tracks extremist organizations.

On Sunday, the site of the ******* was still cordoned off and guarded by the police, but mourners gathered at an adjacent ******* to light candles, lay flowers and leave condolence messages on a large white banner.

“This is the first year we skipped the festival and then this happens,” said Tanya Zastrov, 50, a resident of Solingen, referring to the town’s 650th birthday festival that the ******* so tragically upended. “I’m shocked and speechless,” she added.

Solingen, a city of over 150,000, is ethnically diverse and some condolence messages were written in other languages besides *******, such as Turkish and Greek. During its ***** years in the 1960s and 1970s, the city relied on foreign workers to fill its production plants.

“If someone opens the door for you, then you should be grateful,” said Ahmet Kalayci, 58, who moved to Solingen from Turkey when he was 16. He added: “Then you should behave.”

The ******* on Friday occurred less than three months after a similar ******* by an Afghan ******** in Manheim, another ethnically diverse city in the country’s west, about 130 miles south of Solingen. In that case, an Afghan ******** attacked an anti-immigrant rally with a ****** and ******* a police officer who tried to intervene.

Earlier this month, three Taylor Swift tour dates were canceled in Vienna after U.S. intelligence officials warned their Austrian counterparts that two teenagers were planning on attacking the crowds gathered for the event. The main suspect in that plot had radicalized online, officials said, and had filmed himself swearing allegiance to the Islamic State.

The far-right Alternative for Germany party, which has campaigned largely on an anti-immigrant platform and is poised to make significant gains in three state elections next month, jumped on the news of the Solingen *******. Even before the identity of the attacker was confirmed by the police, one of its leaders called for changes to

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

The authorities had earlier arrested two people who were later determined unlikely to have been the actual attackers, Herbert Reul, the state interior minister of North Rhine-Westphalia, where Solingen is, said in an interview on Saturday with a ******* broadcaster, ARD.

A 15-year-old boy, who was arrested early Saturday, is being investigated for not having alerted the police when he learned about imminent plans to *******, prosecutors said. A man arrested by a heavily armed police unit on Saturday evening in the ******** housing facility where the main suspect also lived is being treated as a witness, the police and Mr. Reul said.

On Saturday, Solingen’s mayor, the state governor and other political leaders gathered on a downtown square several hundred yards from where the ******* took place to mourn the victims. It was an eerie repeat of a similar impromptu service held in Mannheim after the ******* there.

On Sunday, which was supposed to be the final day of joyous festival celebrating a city best known for making knives and scissors, the downtown was mostly deserted.

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

#******* #Prosecutor #Islamic #State #********** #Link #Suspected #Festival #Stabbings

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up