Three Killed in Knife Attack in Germany

Wall Street Journal

Three Killed in Knife Attack in Germany

Somali suspect heard shouting ‘Allahu Akbar,’ witness says; several are injured

Police secured the area around the scene of the attack Friday in the German town of Würzburg.

By Bojan Pancevski

Three people were killed and several seriously hurt Friday in a southern German town after they were attacked by a Somali man with a history of mental illness who one witness said shouted “Allahu Akbar,” authorities said.

The attack took place around 5 p.m. in Würzburg after the 24-year-old suspect snatched a kitchen knife at a supermarket and started stabbing people around him.

The man, who has been living in Wurzburg in the federal state of Bavaria since 2015, was confronted by a small crowd of passersby and then shot in the leg by police, who arrested him minutes after the attack. The suspect likely acted alone, according to police.

The man had a record of violent offenses and had been committed to a psychiatric hospital shortly before the attack, Bavaria’s interior minister Joachim Herrmann, told reporters near the scene.

Mr. Herrmann said one witness had told police the suspect had shouted “Allahu Akbar”—Arabic for “God is most great,” a religious phrase for Muslims but also a war cry used by Islamist terrorists during attacks. A police spokesman said that the man’s record didn’t include offenses related to Islamism and didn’t comment about the suspect’s possible motives.

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