A 21-YEAR-OLD man from Kosovo with possible links to Islamist extremism has confessed to shooting dead two US airmen at Frankfurt airport on Wednesday afternoon.
Investigators in the state of Hesse said the man, Arid Uka, was a loner who was not known to authorities. He worked at the airport’s international postal sorting centre.
Police are investigating his motive. They do not believe he is part of a terrorist cell, but that he was radicalised in the last month.
Authorities said the man had admitted shooting one airman standing beside the bus, which was parked in the public area outside the airport’s second terminal, before storming the vehicle. He shot another airman at the wheel and injured two further men before the gun jammed.
He ran from the bus and into the terminal building where he was subdued by airport police, still carrying a large quantity of ammunition.
“Our investigations so far suggest he is a lone perpetrator [though] there are reasons to believe that he is a radical Muslim,” said Boris Rhein, interior minister in the state of Hesse.
“It’s just one of those attacks that come out of the blue. We don’t see any network in the typical sense, as in a terror cell.”
Germany’s federal prosecutors have taken over investigation from the local authorities, an indication of the seriousness of the attack. They have promised more details on the attack this morning but have declined to comment on German media reports that the man could be heard shouting “Allahu Akbar” as he fired.
The blue military bus that came under fire was scheduled to take 15 airmen from a base in England to the Ramstein airbase in the neighbouring state of Rheinland-Pfalz.
The two airmen injured in the attack were still being treated in hospital in Frankfurt yesterday, with one in a critical and the other in a serious condition.
On Wednesday evening police searched the man’s apartment in Frankfurt’s Sossenheim neighbourhood. He grew up in the city in a devout Muslim family, though he is believed to have been born in Kosovo. Investigators said it was too early to call the gunman a homegrown terrorist, but his case demonstrated how quickly individuals can be radicalised.
German television reported that the man was a member of a circle around an extremist Moroccan imam. He maintained a Facebook profile under the name Abu Reyyan which contained links to several extremist groups, police confirmed. Through his Facebook profile he promoted jihadist hymns on YouTube and linked to websites devoted to weapons and violent computer games.
US president Barack Obama said he was “saddened and outraged” by the attacks, which he said were a “stark reminder” of the sacrifices made by armed forces. “We will spare no effort in learning how this outrageous act took place,” he said.
The US authorities were working with Germany, he said, to “ensure that all the perpetrators are brought to justice”.