Man tries to kill police officers in a police station, police say suspect is “Islamist radicalized”

A 29-year-old Albanian man tried to force his way into a police station in Germany armed with a machete to “kill” agents on Friday, September 6, before being arrested, according to local police. Law enforcement officials are talking about a “Islamist radicalization” of the suspect.

At around 2:40 a.m., the man managed to enter a security airlock at the police station in Linz on the Rhine in the western Rhineland-Palatinate region. “On the spot, he shouted ‘Allah akbar’ several times and said he wanted to kill police officers”police said in a statement. Officers then locked the front doors, which the man tried unsuccessfully to force open, before being incapacitated by the use of a taser, an electric pulse gun.

“The first elements of the investigation indicate that the accused’s motivation is linked to Islamist radicalization”the police said, specifying that the investigations were being conducted by its anti-terrorist unit. During a search of the Albanian’s home, investigators found a flag of the terrorist organization Islamic State drawn on a wall.

The incident occurred the day after an attempted attack on the Israeli consulate general in Munich, carried out by an 18-year-old Austrian of Bosnian origin. He was known to have Islamist sympathies.

At the end of August, a knife attack claimed by the jihadist group Islamic State left three dead and eight injured in Solingen, in western Germany. A Syrian suspect was arrested by the police and imprisoned.