German police kill Afghan teen after train axe attack

German police have shot dead a 17-year-old Afghan refugee after he attacked train passengers with an axe and a knife, seriously wounding three people in what one official said was a “probable” Islamist attack.

Several other people were also injured in the assault on a regional train near the southern city of Wuerzburg, police said, adding that the teenager was killed as he tried to flee.

Joachim Herrmann, the interior minister of Bavaria State, said the assailant had arrived as an unaccompanied minor in Germany and was living nearby Ochsenfurt. “It is quite probable that this was an Islamist attack,” said a ministry spokesman, adding that the attacker had shouted “Allahu akbar” (God is greatest).

The attack happened around 9:15 pm (1915 GMT) last night on the train, which runs between Treuchlingen and Wuerzburg in Bavaria. 

“Shortly after arriving at Wuerzburg, a man attacked passengers with an axe and a knife,” a police spokesman said. “Three people have been seriously injured and several others lightly injured.” Fourteen people were treated for shock. He added: “The perpetrator was able to leave the train, police left in pursuit and as part of this pursuit, they shot the attacker and killed him.”

There were no further details on the circumstances of the teenager’s death. Germany had thus far escaped the kind of large-scale jihadist attacks seen in the southern French city of Nice last week, in which 31-year-old Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel used a truck to mow down people leaving a Bastille Day fireworks display, killing 84 people in an attack claimed by Islamic State.

In May in Germany, a mentally unstable 27-year-old man carried out a knife attack on a regional train in the south, killing one person and injuring three others. Early reports suggested he had yelled “Allahu akbar” but police later said there was no evidence pointing to a religious motive. He is being held in a psychiatric hospital.

Germany let in a record nearly 1.1 million asylum seekers last year, with Syrians the largest group followed by Afghans fleeing ongoing turmoil and poverty in their country. The number of refugees arriving in Germany has fallen sharply as a result of the closure of the Balkans migration route and an EU deal with Turkey to stem the flow.

In April, May and June, the number was around 16,000 each month, less than a fifth of the tally seen at the start of the year, according to official figures. Bavaria is governed by the Christian Social Union (CSU), sister party to Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservative Christian Democrats.

The CSU has been loudly critical of Merkel’s welcoming stance toward asylum seekers, a split that threatened the unity of the ruling coalition in Berlin and sent the government’s approval ratings plunging