Specialist police have taken over the investigation after a migrant knifeman shouting “Allahu Akbar” raided a police station, declaring he had come to kill police officers.
An Islamist apparently botched an attempted terror attack in the German city of Linz, in the Rhineland-Palatinate on Friday after he rushed a police station with a machete. He attempted to get inside but was foiled by the security door, and was locked in — alone — in the compound by officers, who then tasered him into submission.
The suspect, said to be a 29-year-old Albanian migrant, is reported to have shouted the now-familiar “Allahu Akhbar” as he attempted to strike, and investigating officers searching his apartment found an Islamic State flag hanging on the wall. Police have conceded there was likely an Islamist terror motive, but Welt states he was not on the radar of the intelligence services before today.
He has been arrested on suspicion of attempted murder and is awaiting trial, with the investigation into the attack being handed by counter-terror officers.
The attempted attack is the second such encounter between German police and suspected radicalised Islamists in two days. On Thursday in Munich a gunman was shot dead by police near the Israeli consulate.
The man, a “Bosnian heritage” Austrian citizen who was armed with a Second World War-era rifle and bayonet was killed after opening fire in a city square that was also adjacent to the former headquarters of the Nazi Party. It is reported the gunman had previously been known to police for possessing Islamic State propaganda.
