SOLINGEN: A Syrian man suspected of belonging to a “terrorist group” has given himself up and confessed to killing three people and wounding eight others in a knife rampage at a German street festival, officials said on Sunday.

The random attack as thousands of people gathered on Friday night in the western city of Solingen has stunned Germany. Two men aged 56 and 67 and a 56-year-old woman were killed, officials said.

Four of the wounded remained in a serious condition. All of the victims were stabbed in the neck, according to police.

Police said in a statement that the suspect was a 26-year-old Syrian who had “given himself up to authorities… and declared himself responsible for the attack”. German prosecutors said they had launched a “terrorist” investigation and ordered the pre-trial detention of the man, who is suspected of belonging to a “terrorist group”.

The suspect identified as “Syrian national Issa Al H” will be detained over “strong suspicions of belonging to a terrorist group abroad” as well as of murder and attempted murder, the prosecutor’s office said in a statement.

The militant Islamic State group’s Amaq propaganda arm has claimed responsibility for the attack, saying “the perpetrator of the attack on a gathering of Christians” in Solingen “was a soldier of the Islamic State”.

IS said the attack was carried out as “revenge for Muslims in Palestine and everywhere”, in an apparent reference to the Gaza conflict. The claim could not be immediately verified.

According to the Bild and Spiegel newspapers, the suspect arrived in Germany in December 2022 and had a protected immigration status often given to those fleeing war-torn Syria. German Vice Chancellor Robert Habeck said the suspect was not known to the security services as an extremist considered dangerous.

Flowers, candles and messages lined the streets near the festival in Solingen, where the rampage took place as thousands of people gathered on Friday for the first night of a “Festival of Diversity”, part of a series of events to mark the city’s 650th anniversary. The whole festival has now been cancelled.

The youth wing of Germany’s far-right, anti-immigrant AfD party, Junge Alternative, said it planned to hold a demonstration near the scene later on Sunday, with a counter-protest also planned.

German officers indicated that a suspect arrested a day before at a raid at a hostel for asylum seekers, not far from the scene of the attack, was being considered a “witness”.

Published in Dawn, August 26th, 2024