Berlin - Arab Today
German authorities cast doubt Wednesday on whether a teenager who went on an axe rampage on a Bavarian train was really an Afghan refugee, saying he might have been from Pakistan.
Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere said the teenager was believed to be a “lone wolf” attacker who appeared to have been “inspired” by the Daesh group but was not a member of the jihadist network.
“This is perhaps a case that lies somewhere between a crazed rampage and terrorism,” de Maiziere told reporters.
He said investigators were still trying to determine the true identity of the 17-year-old who was shot dead by police following the train attack in which he injured five people, two of them critically.
The Daesh group released a video Tuesday purportedly featuring the assailant announcing in Pashto he would carry out an “operation” in Germany, and presenting himself as a “soldier of the caliphate.”
German authorities said they had authenticated the video.
However, security service sources now think he might have pretended to be Afghan on arrival in Germany in 2015 in order to have a better chance of securing asylum, ZDF public television reported.
In the IS video the youth uses phrases of a dialect of Pashto spoken in Pakistan — not Afghanistan — and experts have indicated that his accent is also clearly Pakistani, ZDF said.
A Pakistani document was also found in his room.
Source: Arab News