3 dead in knife attack on German festival

IS claims attack 'for Muslims in Palestine'

SOLINGEN, GERMANY:

Police on Saturday hunted a man who stabbed three people to death and wounded eight others at a street festival in the city of Solingen, with a terror motive for the attack "not excluded".

The unidentified knifeman went on a rampage in the western town of Solingen late on Friday, as thousands had gathered for the first night of a "Festival of Diversity", part of a series of events to mark the town's 650th anniversary.

On Saturday, police announced they had detained a person as part of the probe, with a prosecutor later saying it was a 15-year-old suspected of "non-denunciation" of a criminal act.

Witnesses had allegedly seen the teen discussing the attack just before it happened with a man who could be the knifeman, said Markus Caspers, prosecutor of Duesseldorf that lies just west of Solingen.

"We have not been able to identify a motive for now, but in view of all of the circumstances, we are working under the assumption that the initial suspicion of a terrorist motive cannot be excluded," Caspers told a press conference. The people killed were men of 56 and 67 years of age and a 56-year-old woman, officials said.

"The victims were completely unknown with no known ties between them, so based on this we're concluding that it could be a terror act," Caspers said, adding that "no other motive is evident at this time".

Four of the wounded were in a "serious" condition, officials said, revising down an earlier estimate of five.

"After analysing the first images, we're going on the principle that it was an attack targeted toward the neck," police chief Thorsten Fleiss told the press conference.

Interior Minister Nancy Faeser said Germany's "security authorities are doing everything they can to catch the perpetrator" of the "horrific act", while Chancellor Olaf Scholz said he "must be caught quickly and punished".