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Die Tageszeitung, July 20th
Monday’s gruesome axe attack on a commuter train in southern Germany left many unanswered questions on the Wednesday front page of German daily Die Tageszeitung, as evidenced by its enigmatic headline made of just four question marks.
On Monday evening, a 17-year-old man armed with a knife and an axe wounded five people, one critically, on a train near Würzburg in Bavaria. The attacker, who was first reported to have emigrated from Afghanistan but is now thought to be Pakistani, then injured a local woman in a nearby town before being shot dead by the police.
German authorities found a hand-drawn flag resembling the one used by terror group ISIS in the attacker’s room, and he man reportedly shouted “Allahu Akbar” (“God is Great”) during the attack, according to a witness. A pro-ISIS media group claimed responsibility for the attack, calling the teenager an “ISIS fighter,” although it is still unclear whether he belonged to an Islamist group or had self-radicalized more recently. Authorities believe it is unlikely that he was working under the direct supervision of the terror group.
The attack is yet another blow to Germany’s migrant policies, as the attacker reportedly came to Germany as an unaccompanied minor and was registered as a refugee on June 30 of last year. German Chancellor Angela Merkel“s open-door refugee policy is now being slammed, with Reuters quoting a leader of the anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany (AfD) as saying that Merkel and her supporters were to blame for the dangerous security situation in the country, by bringing “too many young, uneducated and radical Muslim men to Germany.” Germany welcomed an estimated 1 million migrants in 2015.