Foreign Affairs

Hamburg Stabber ‘Islamist But Not Jihadist’ Say Police

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Police have reported that an Islamist but not a jihadist killed one and injured seven in a July 28 knife attack in Hamburg, Germany, local media reported Sunday.

Born in the UAE, the 26-year-old Palestinian man was denied asylum and was on intelligence watch lists, but the German police still concluded he was “not as a jihadist but an Islamist” after the attack, according to a statement made by Hamburg Interior Minister Andy Grote.

After stabbing eight people in a Hamburg supermarket Friday, market-goers subdued the man and police arrested him shortly thereafter, the Clarion Project reported.

Police believe he acted alone and so far have declined to give a motive for the attack. A psychologist diagnosed him as “psychologically unstable.”

Two people were also killed and four seriously injured in another attack on Friday at a nightclub in the German city of Konstanz. The gunman was identified as an Iraqi citizen who was not an asylum seeker, and his motives were also unclear, police reported according to the U.K. Independent.

“The motives of the man who acted alone are unclear. We are still investigating but the circumstances surrounding the events at the disco in the evening before the shooting are a bit clearer and this led us to rule out a terrorism background,” Konstanz police spokesman Fritz Bezikofer told reporters.

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