Afghan refugee goes on a rampage with an axe in German train, shot dead

Berlin: German police have shot dead a 17-year-old Afghan refugee after he attacked train passengers with an axe and a knife, seriously wounding three people in what one official said was a "probable" Islamist attack. Several other people were also injured in the assault on a regional train near the southern city of Wuerzburg, police said, adding that the teenager was killed as he tried to flee. Joachim Herrmann, the interior minister of Bavaria State said, the assailant had arrived as an unaccompanied minor in Germany and was living nearby Ochsenfurt. "It is quite probable that this was an Islamist attack," said a ministry spokesman, adding that the attacker had shouted "Allahu akbar" (God is greatest). The attack happened around 9:15 pm (1915 GMT) last night on the train, which runs between Treuchlingen and Wuerzburg in Bavaria. "Shortly after arriving at Wuerzburg, a man attacked passengers with an axe and a knife," a police spokesman said. "Three people have been seriously injured and several others lightly injured." Fourteen people were treated for shock. Germany had thus far escaped the kind of large-scale jihadist attacks seen in the southern French city of Nice last week, in which 31-year-old Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel used a truck to mow down people leaving a Bastille Day fireworks display, killing 84 people in an attack claimed by Islamic State.