Knife attack in Germany: Police arrest suspected knife attacker

SOLINGEN (AP) – A 26-year-old man has turned himself in to police and said he was responsible for the Knife attack in Solingen Three people were killed and eight injured at a celebration to mark the city's 650th anniversary, German authorities said on Sunday.

In a joint statement by the Düsseldorf police and the public prosecutor's office, it was said that the man “stated that he was responsible for the attack”.

“This person’s involvement in the crime is currently being intensively investigated,” the statement said.

The Federal Prosecutor's Office said it was investigating murder, attempted murder and membership in a foreign terrorist organization. The suspect was taken from the Solingen police station on Sunday evening, handcuffed and shackled, and brought before a judge at the Federal Court of Justice in Karlsruhe.

The suspect is a Syrian citizen who had applied for asylum in Germany, police confirmed to The Associated Press. The news agency dpa reported, without citing a specific source, that his asylum application had been rejected and that he should have been deported last year.

On Saturday, Militant group “Islamic State” claimed responsibility for the attack without providing evidence. The extremist group said on its news site that the attacker targeted Christians and that the perpetrator carried out the attacks on Friday night “to avenge Muslims in Palestine and everywhere else.”

The claim could not be independently verified. Few of the claims on the website have been proven to be completely unfounded, said Peter Neumann, professor of security studies at King's College London. However, “IS's strategy for several years has been to claim responsibility for attacks that are merely 'inspired', i.e. where the connection between the organization and the attacker is purely ideological.”

The attack on Friday left Solingen in shock and mourning. The city with around 160,000 inhabitants near the major cities of Cologne and Düsseldorf held a “Festival of Diversity” to mark the anniversary.

Shortly after 9:30 p.m. local time on Friday, police were notified that a man had attacked several people with a knife on Fronhof, the city's central square. The three people killed were two men aged 67 and 56 and a 56-year-old woman, authorities said. Police said the attacker had apparently aimed specifically at his victims' throats.

The festival, which was supposed to last until Sunday, was cancelled as police searched for clues in the cordoned-off square. Instead, residents gathered to mourn the dead and injured, laying flowers and letters near the crime scene.

“Why?” asked a sign between candles and teddy bears. Why?

Among those who asked this question was 62-year-old Cord Boetther, a businessman from Solingen.

“Why does something like this have to be done? It is incomprehensible and it hurts,” said Boetther.

Officials had previously said a 15-year-old boy was arrested because he allegedly knew about the planned attack and failed to inform authorities, but he was not the attacker. Two female witnesses told police they heard the boy and an unidentified person discussing intentions related to the bloodshed before the attack, officials said.

The attack came amid the debate over immigration ahead of next Sunday's state elections in Saxony and Thuringia, where anti-immigration parties such as the populist Alternative for Germany are expected to do well. In June, Chancellor Olaf Scholz announced that the country would resume deporting criminals from Afghanistan and Syria after a police officer was killed and four others injured in a knife attack by an Afghan immigrant.

The IS militia The group declared its caliphate in large parts of Iraq and Syria about a decade ago, but today it has no control over any land and has lost many prominent leaders. The group is rarely seen in global headlines.

Nevertheless, it continues to recruit members and assumes responsibility for deadly attacks around the worldincluding fatal Operations in Iran and Russia at the beginning of the year, in which dozens of people died. Sleeper cells in Syria and Iraq continue to carry out attacks on government forces in both countries as well as on US-backed Syrian fighters.

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McHugh contributed from Frankfurt, Germany.