Ten wounded in bus knife attack in Germany

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Europe

Ten people were injured on Friday afternoon when a man wielding a knife attacked passengers on a crowded bus in the northern German city of Luebeck.

The suspect was arrested at the scene, and police said they were not treating this as a terror attack.

"The identity of the perpetrator has been clarified: a 34-year-old German citizen resident in Luebeck," police said on Twitter.

"There are currently no indications the man was politically radicalized and no signs of a terrorist background."

A police officer looks on as a bus is towed away from the crime scene after a knife attack on a passenger in Luebeck, Germany on July 20, 2018. /VCG Photo

Earlier reports had put the number of injured at 14, but regional Schleswig-Holstein police tweeted that 10 people were hurt and they had been brought to the hospital.

“No one was killed. The perpetrator was overpowered and is now in police custody," it also said.

In a statement, the police and state prosecutor's office said: "The background to the crime is still unclear and the subject of the ongoing investigation."

The local newspaper Luebecker Nachrichten reported, without citing a source, that the suspect was originally from Iran but had lived in Luebeck for years and now had German nationality.

The attack took place at 1.47 p.m. local time (1147 GMT).

Witnesses said the suspect suddenly pulled out a knife – one man said it was a kitchen knife – and started stabbing passengers.

The bus driver immediately stopped the vehicle, allowing passengers to escape.

Police added that a backpack was found in the bus from which smoke was appearing, but the bomb squad only found a "fire accelerant," and no explosives.

Germany has been on high alert after several deadly attacks; many linked to Islamist extremists.

In the deadliest in December 2016, a Tunisian man whose request for asylum was turned down and who had links to Islamist militants plowed a truck into a crowded Christmas market in Berlin, killing 12.

(Top picture: Police officers stand near a public bus in Kuecknitz near Luebeck, Germany, after several people were injured in a knife assault, July 20, 2018. /VCG Photo)

Source(s): AFP ,Reuters