A Syrian man has given himself up and confessed to killing three people and wounding eight in a knife rampage at a street festival, German police said yesterday.
The attack as thousands of people gathered on Friday night in the western city of Solingen has stunned Germany.
A 56-year-old woman and two men aged 56 and 67 were killed, officials said.
Photo: AP
Four of the wounded remained in a serious condition.
All of the victims were stabbed in the neck, police said.
The suspect was a 26-year-old Syrian who had “given himself up to authorities ... and declared himself responsible for the attack,” police said in a statement.
German prosecutors said they had launched a “terrorist” investigation.
The suspect arrived in Germany in December 2022 and had a protected immigration status often given to those fleeing war-torn Syria, the Bild and Spiegel reported.
The Islamic State group’s Amaq propaganda arm has claimed responsibility for the attack, saying “the perpetrator of the attack on a gathering of Christians” in Solingen “was a soldier of the Islamic State.”
It said the attack was carried out as “revenge for Muslims in Palestine and everywhere,” in an apparent reference to the Gaza conflict.
The claim could not be immediately verified.
German Vice Chancellor Robert Habeck said the suspect was not known to the security services as an extremist considered dangerous.
Habeck — who yesterday called for tougher knife laws — said “Islamic terrorism” was one of “the biggest security dangers” Germany faces.
The attack took place as thousands of people gathered for the first night of the “Festival of Diversity,” part of a series of events to mark Solingen’s 650th anniversary. The whole festival has been canceled.
German officers yesterday said that a suspect arrested a day before in a raid at a hostel for asylum seekers, not far from the scene of the attack, was considered a “witness.”
UNITED: The premier said Trump’s tariff comments provided a great opportunity for the private and public sectors to come together to maintain the nation’s chip advantage The government is considering ways to assist the nation’s semiconductor industry or hosting collaborative projects with the private sector after US President Donald Trump threatened to impose a 100 percent tariff on chips exported to the US, Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) said yesterday. Trump on Monday told Republican members of the US Congress about plans to impose sweeping tariffs on semiconductors, steel, aluminum, copper and pharmaceuticals “in the very near future.” “It’s time for the United States to return to the system that made us richer and more powerful than ever before,” Trump said at the Republican Issues Conference in Miami, Florida. “They
GOLDEN OPPORTUNITY: Taiwan must capitalize on the shock waves DeepSeek has sent through US markets to show it is a tech partner of Washington, a researcher said China’s reported breakthrough in artificial intelligence (AI) would prompt the US to seek a stronger alliance with Taiwan and Japan to secure its technological superiority, a Taiwanese researcher said yesterday. The launch of low-cost AI model DeepSeek (深度求索) on Monday sent US tech stocks tumbling, with chipmaker Nvidia Corp losing 16 percent of its value and the NASDAQ falling 612.46 points, or 3.07 percent, to close at 19,341.84 points. On the same day, the Philadelphia Stock Exchange Semiconductor Sector index dropped 488.7 points, or 9.15 percent, to close at 4,853.24 points. The launch of the Chinese chatbot proves that a competitor can
TAIWAN DEFENSE: The initiative would involve integrating various systems in a fast-paced manner through the use of common software to obstruct a Chinese invasion The first tranche of the US Navy’s “Replicator” initiative aimed at obstructing a Chinese invasion of Taiwan would be ready by August, a US Naval Institute (USNI) News report on Tuesday said. The initiative is part of a larger defense strategy for Taiwan, and would involve launching thousands of uncrewed submarines, surface vessels and aerial vehicles around Taiwan to buy the nation and its partners time to assemble a response. The plan was first made public by the Washington Post in June last year, when it cited comments by US Indo-Pacific Commander Admiral Samuel Paparo on the sidelines of the Shangri-La Dialogue
MARITIME SECURITY: Of the 52 vessels, 15 were rated a ‘threat’ for various reasons, including the amount of time they spent loitering near subsea cables, the CGA said Taiwan has identified 52 “suspicious” Chinese-owned ships flying flags of convenience that require close monitoring if detected near the nation, the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) said yesterday, as the nation seeks to protect its subsea telecoms cables. The stricter regime comes after a Cameroon-flagged vessel was briefly detained by the CGA earlier this month on suspicion of damaging an international cable northeast of Taiwan. The vessel is owned by a Hong Kong-registered company with a Chinese address given for its only listed director, the CGA said previously. Taiwan fears China could sever its communication links as part of an attempt
RSS