Deutschland (Germany)

World must support Peshmerga and Iraq in war on terror, says Merkel
"Germany and other countries should continue their assistance to the Peshmerga forces in the fight against ISIS," said Merkel, speaking to the German parliament ahead of the NATO summit that is scheduled to take place in Poland on Friday and Saturday.
She also urged NATO to maintain its support and assistance to Iraq amid the destruction caused by the war against terror.
"NATO's assistance to protect Iraq should be ongoing," Merkel said.
Merkel added that "The terror and violent groups pose serious threats to the world in general, Iraq and Syria in particular."
"Iraq and Syria have been devastated by war and the threats finally reached Paris, Brussels, Ankara, and Istanbul,” she explained. “Therefore the world should be one and cooperate in combating terror in the region."
Germany has been at the forefront of arming Iraq’s Kurds in the war against ISIS that has raged since 2014.
Although Germany is not directly participating in the US-led coalition airstrikes against ISIS, it is among the countries arming the Kurdistan Region directly, providing military supplies and training.
About 80 German soldiers are stationed in the Kurdistan Region to train the Peshmerga forces. Germany is one of the few countries supplying the Kurdish troops directly through Erbil and not through the Iraqi central government in Bagdad.
Some 4,700 Peshmerga have been trained by German trainers.
The first plane carrying high-tech German weapons arrived in Erbil on September 25, 2014, following the German Defense Minister Von der Leyen’s first visit. That shipment was followed by many other weapons and equipment for the Peshmerga.
 
German train 'axe attack': Many reported hurt - BBC News
More than 20 people in Germany have been injured after a man with an axe and a knife went on the rampage on a train, German media report.

They include three seriously injured people, one lightly injured person and 14 who are in shock.

A police operation is under way in Heidingsfeld, part of the city of Wurzburg in Germany.

A police spokesman at the scene said (in German) the attacker was shot dead while fleeing.

The train line between Wurzburg-Heidingsfeld and Ochsenfurt has been closed.

Axe-wielding man injures as many as 21 in Germany
 
German train attack: Afghan knifeman 'wanted revenge' for friend's death - BBC News
Two Hongkongers critically hurt in German axe attack by Afghan refugee who kept Islamic State flag at home
Hong Kong had its first taste of the terror of Islamic State on Tuesday when a family from the city holidaying in south Germany was attacked on a train by an Afghan refugee said to be linked to the jihadist group.

The 17-year-old attacker was shot dead by German police as he fled the bloody scene after using an axe and a knife against the four Hongkongers – a married couple, their daughter and her boyfriend. The two men, aged 62 and 31, suffered critical injuries and were under intensive care in the city of Wuerzburg.

Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying condemned the attack, hours before the jihadist group claimed responsibility. Leung sent a team of four immigration officials to accompany four of the victims’ relatives who are due to arrive in Germany on Wednesday.

It is understood the family travelled to Germany after attending the wedding of another daughter in Britain.

...
Prosecutors in Germany say a teenager who attacked train passengers with an axe in Wuerzburg had learnt that a friend had been killed in Afghanistan, and wanted to get revenge.

The 17 year-old, who arrived in Germany a year ago as an unaccompanied refugee, injured four people, two critically, in the attack on Monday evening.

Bavarian regional prosecutor Erik Ohlenschlager said the boy was a devout Muslim and wanted to get revenge on "infidels" who had harmed his Muslim friends. He accepted that his own death was a possibility.

Mr Ohlenschlager said the attack was "definitely politically motivated".

A news agency with links to IS said the boy had launched the attack "in answer to the calls to target the countries of the coalition fighting Islamic State".

But Bavaria's Interior Minister Joachim Herrmann said there was no indication the teenager had direct contact with IS.

Mr Herrmann said there was no indication Chinese citizens had been specifically targeted.

(So on a train with mostly Europeans the guy attacks Chinese people? Are there Chinese soldiers in Afghanistan? Seems there are http://www.businessinsider.com/china-is-seeking-deeper-military-ties-with-afghanistan-2016-4?r=US&IR=T&IR=T
There are also Chinese advisers in Syria which is probably where the kid came from as IS are not that big in Afghanistan)
 
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Germany opens two military training centres near Erbil

Germany opened on Tuesday two military centres near Erbil designed for training of the Kurdish Peshmerga.

Speaking to Peshmerga commanders at the ceremony inaugurating the centres, Colonel Frank Wasgindt, commander of the German contingent providing training assistance in Kurdistan, said that the names of the military training centres are “German Village and Ghost House.”

“This German Village is a training center consisting of 51 containers,” Wasgindt said. “The total area of the [German Village] training centre is 40,000 square meters.”

Wasgindt added that there are buildings, tunnel systems, and a river built on the training grounds to simulate real-life conditions the Peshmerga forces may face in combat, which “prepares Kurdish security forces for any kind of situation.”

Describing the Ghost House training centre Wasgindt said, “The Ghost House offers four similar classrooms in which in any case soldiers can be taught in military basics.”

There are areas specialized for training in urban warfare in the Ghost House, the German colonel added.

Germany, which is not directly participating in the US-led coalition airstrikes against ISIS, has been at the forefront of arming Iraq’s Kurds in the war against the Islamic State that has raged since 2014.

About 80 German soldiers are stationed in the Kurdistan Region to train the Peshmerga forces. Germany is one of the few countries supplying the Kurdish troops directly through Erbil and not through the Iraqi central government in Baghdad.
 
Axe attack on Hong Kong tourists: did death of friend in Afghanistan trigger young refugee’s rampage on train?
By all accounts, the 17-year-old Afghan behind an axe rampage aboard a commuter train in Germany seemed to be quickly integrating and adapting to life in there — until something, possibly the death of a friend back home, prompted him to radicalise and turn on the country that took him in.

The teen was one of about 60,000 unaccompanied minors who came into Germany last year amid a flood of 1 million migrants. Authorities say such young people are sometimes traumatised, but also vulnerable to radicalisation by Islamic extremists.

He wasn’t on authorities’ radar, and people who knew him said he seemed to be fitting in. He played soccer with the locals and had an internship at a local bakery, a growing command of the German language and a new home with a foster family outside the serene Bavarian town of Ochsenfurt.

He was a Sunni Muslim who went to mosque only on holidays, but prayed regularly at home.

“He always seemed relaxed, pleasant, he smiled, he was completely unobtrusive, in the best sense,” said Simone Barrientos, 52, who lived down the road from the boy’s refugee home and belongs to a group of volunteers that helps refugees in Ochsenfurt.

“I would see him around, we exchanged perhaps a couple of words,” she said.

Barrientos said people who interacted with him are at a loss to explain what happened.

“With all these young people, you have to assume trauma. To do anything else would be naive,” she said.

“Perhaps people who have been traumatised develop different strategies, and in his case, his strategy was probably to keep things close to his chest.”

Two days before the attack, he found out that a friend had died in Afghanistan and reportedly was very agitated by the news, but investigators say exactly what happened is unclear.

After that, his foster parents told the police he acted differently, spending a lot of time on his cellphone, though it wasn’t clear who he was speaking to.

As he left Monday, he told his foster family he was going on a bike ride. His online footprints seemed inconspicuous until shortly before the attack, authorities said.

“He was active on social media, had his page there, but there were no hints of any extremist Islamist thought,” Bavarian criminal police investigator Lothar Koehler said. “However, 24 hours ago, he posted a cryptic message about the enemies of Islam.”

In the video released by IS, the teen called himself a “soldier of the Islamic state” and urged other Muslims in the West to “kill these infidels in the countries that you live in.”

“I have lived in your own home and have planned to behead you in your own territory,” he said in his native Pashto. “I will behead you with these knives and break your necks with these axes.”
Two Hongkongers critically hurt in German axe attack by Afghan refugee who kept Islamic State flag at home
Investigators later seized a “hand-painted IS flag” in his room at his foster home in the nearby town of Ochsenfurt.

(I take it the German authorities have his mobile phone to check his calls, and his online contacts)
 
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The gunman was an 18 year old who later shot himself dead. Shame he didn't just kill himself first.

Nine people were killed and 16 wounded. The attack is the third on civilians in western Europe in eight days, following the violence in Nice and Wuerzburg.

Munich shooting: Police appeal for video evidence - BBC News

They were just saying on the news now that there are unconfirmed reports that the majority of the people shot were quite young.
 
Munich shooting: Police appeal for video evidence - BBC News
A grainy video appears to show a man firing a gun outside a McDonald's fast-food restaurant as people flee.

Another video shows the gunman walking around alone on a flat roof before again opening fire. He can be heard shouting at the person filming, saying at one point, "I'm German". (a strange thing to say ... )
 
robert99 said:
Another video shows the gunman walking around alone on a flat roof before again opening fire. He can be heard shouting at the person filming, saying at one point, "I'm German". (a strange thing to say ... )
Click to expand...
It was in response to someone talking to him from a balcony. Quite a bizarre conversation, with insults and curse words flying in both directions. The transcript is online in at least one newspaper at this point ...
 
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_90494250_034186128-1.jpg


Is this the new Police uniform in Munich?! Have you a link for the transcript? (update - found one at
Embedded media from this media site is no longer available
) liveleak.com/view?i=fff_1469212676
 
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Motstridiga vittnesuppgifter om skytten - DN.SE
Amateurvideos zeigen Anschlag: Verstörendes Video: "Ich war in Behandlung"
According to Sweden's Dagens Nyheter, he said in the video that he was bullied for 7 years (in school?) and therefore was going to shoot everyone (not on the transcript I linked to). Apparently he was being treated for psychiatric problems too.
(It seems he targeted youngsters with non-German apperance)
Munich gunman 'obsessed with mass shootings' - BBC News
Munich shooting - teenager kills nine and himself | News | DW.COM | 23.07.2016
Three victims were from Kosovo, three from Turkey and one from Greece.
More info at
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/24/world/europe/munich-shooting-attack.html
 
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Munich shooting: David Sonboly 'planned attack for year' - BBC News
The state government officials told a news conference that the victims of the attack had not been specifically targeted and were not classmates of the gunman.

Also they did not include three youths allegedly involved in bullying Sonboly when he was at school.

As to Sonboly's state of mind, a spokesman for the Munich prosecutors' office told the news conference that the gunman had spent two months as an inpatient at a mental care facility in 2015 and was afterwards treated as an outpatient.

"The suspect had fears of contact with others" and also depression, Thomas Steinkraus-Koch said.
 
PressTV-Woman killed in Germany machete attack
Man armed with machete kills woman in Germany | News | DW.COM | 24.07.2016
The machete-wielding attacker sparked panic after killing a woman near a Turkish fast-food kiosk in downtown Reutlingen, German mass-circulation newspaper "Bild" reported Sunday.

Two more people, a man and a woman, were reportedly wounded in the attack.

A car driver spotted the attacker running away from the scene and hit him with his vehicle, allowing police to grab hold of the suspect and make an arrest, according to a police spokesman cited by the DPA news agency.

Police stated that the suspect is a 21-year-old male refugee from Syria who is known to authorities for previous acts of violence.

The alleged perpetrator was reported to have been arguing with the deceased woman before attacking her.

Authorities believe the man acted alone.
 
Ansbach bombing: attacker was rejected Syrian asylum seeker, say officials – latest
'Syrian asylum seeker' behind Ansbach bomb blast | News | DW.COM | 24.07.2016
The suspect, identified as a 27-year-old Syrian asylum seeker, arrived in Germany two years ago. His application for asylum was rejected last year but he had been allowed to remain temporarily in Germany and was living in an apartment in the town. He had twice before tried to commit suicide and had received psychiatric care.

Speaking at a press conference, Herrmann said it was "outrageous" that someone would abuse the asylum system and added that everything would be done to prevent this kind of behavior.

A spokesman for the Ansbach prosecutor's office said the attacker's motive wasn't clear. "If there is an Islamist link or not is purely speculation at this point," said spokesman Michael Schrotberger.

The minister told the DPA news agency he agreed that it was too early to say if there was any link with the self-styled "Islamic State" (IS), but added that could not to be ruled out.

Herrmann said, however, that it did appear that the individual intended to harm others.

"Given that he had a backpack with explosives which also had many sharp-edged pieces of metal packed inside - which would be the case with a bomb intended to injure as many people as possible in the surrounding area - we must assume that this was not purely an act of suicide but rather that he wanted to bring disaster to as many people as possible," said the minister.
 

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