A gunman opened fire outside a shopping mall in Munich late on Friday afternoon, killing nine people, wounding 21 and sending Germany’s third-largest city into lockdown as the police scrambled to find what they initially thought were as many as three assailants. By early Saturday, the authorities said the attack was probably the work of a single gunman, an 18-year-old German of Iranian descent who they said held both German and Iranian citizenship.
The body of the presumed gunman, whose name was not immediately made public, was found less than a mile from the mall with a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head, officials said. During a news conference early Saturday, Hubertus Andrä, the chief of the Munich police, said it was unclear what had motivated the assailant, who lived in the city for more than two years and had no police record. He said the authorities were not certain that the rampage was a terrorist attack. Three of the wounded were in critical condition, officials said.
Members of an elite counterterrorism squad fanned out across the city, and residents were ordered to stay indoors. In some places, pedestrians could be seen raising their hands as they walked past police officers who had their weapons drawn. Germany has been on edge all week, after an Afghan teenager slashed and stabbed passengers on a train bound for Würzburg on Monday. The assailant, a refugee who arrived in Germany last year and who was shot dead by the police, was reported to have waged his attack in the name of the Islamic State.
Germany, which has welcomed more than 800,000 asylum seekers from Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq and other countries, has been largely spared the violence inspired by Islamic extremists that has swept Europe in recent months.
Source: NewYorkTimes
another sad gun story
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