Stabbing rampage in Germany kills three, official says it was possibly terrorism

By Petra Wischgoll, Tom Sims and Thomas Seythal

SOLINGEN, Germany (Reuters) -A stabbing rampage in which a man killed three people and wounded eight others at a festival in the western German city of Solingen was a possible act of terrorism, an official said on Saturday.

Police were searching for the assailant, who was still at large after Friday evening's attack. They said they had detained a 15-year-old individual and were investigating whether this person had a link to the attacker.

Markus Caspers, an official with the public prosecutor’s office in Duesseldorf, said terrorism could not be ruled out because there was no other known motive and because the victims seemed unrelated.

A police official, Thorsten Fleiss, said at the same news conference on Saturday afternoon that the assailant appeared to aim for his targets' throats.

Interior minister Nancy Faeser said security authorities were doing everything they could to catch the assailant and investigate the attack, which took place in the Fronhof, a market square in Solingen where live bands were playing.

The city was hosting a festival marking its 650th anniversary in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, which borders the Netherlands.

"The perpetrator must be quickly caught and punished to the fullest extent of the law," Chancellor Olaf Scholz said in a post on X.

Police cordoned off the square on Saturday and passers-by placed candles and flowers outside the barriers.

"We are full of shock and grief," Solingen Mayor Tim-Oliver Kurzbach told journalists.

The German musician who goes by the name Topic said he was playing on a nearby stage when the incident occurred. He was told about what had happened but was asked to keep playing "to avoid causing a mass panic attack", he posted on Instagram.

He was eventually told to stop, and "since the attacker was still on the run, we hid in a nearby store while police helicopters circled above us," Topic wrote.

Authorities cancelled the remainder of the weekend festival.

Fatal stabbings and shootings are relatively uncommon in Germany. The government said earlier this month it wanted to toughen rules on knives that can be carried in public by reducing the maximum length allowed.

In June, a 29-year-old policeman died after being stabbed in Mannheim during an attack on a right-wing demonstration. A stabbing attack on a train in 2021 injured several.

North Rhine-Westphalia's interior minister, Herbert Reul, visited the scene in Solingen early on Saturday. He told reporters it was a targeted attack on human life but declined to speculate on the motive.

Solingen, well known for its knife manufacturing industry, is a city of some 165,000 people.

The episode comes ahead of three state elections next month in Thuringia, Saxony and Brandenburg, in which the anti-immigrant far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) has a chance of winning.

Though the motive and identity of the assailant were not known, a top AfD candidate for one of the state elections, Bjoern Hoecke, seized on Friday's attack, posting on X: "Do you really want to get used to this? Free yourselves and end this insanity of forced multiculturalism".

(Additional reporting by Thilo Schmuelgen and Rene WagnerEditing by Kirsten Donovan, Hugh Lawson and Frances Kerry)