Suspected terrorist attack: Many shots, many clues and many unanswered questions

After the suspected terrorist attack in Munich, investigators are looking into evidence of an Islamist or anti-Semitic motive. Based on the information available so far, this is the “working hypothesis,” said Gabriele Tilmann, head of the Bavarian Central Office for Combating Extremism and Terrorism (ZET) at the Munich Public Prosecutor’s Office. Messages from the 18-year-old shooter from Austria with evidence of a motive have not yet been found.

The motive is clearer in the case of an attack on a police station in Linz in Rhineland-Palatinate early on Friday morning. According to investigators, this attack was motivated by Islamist motives. According to investigators, a man armed with a machete and a knife appeared at the police station at 2:40 a.m. and repeatedly shouted “Allahu Akbar” (“God is great”). He also announced that he wanted to kill police officers. The man was overpowered and no police officers were injured. The 29-year-old is in custody on suspicion of attempted murder. Investigators found a flag of the terrorist organization Islamic State drawn on the wall in his apartment.

Executions reenacted with video game avatar

According to Tilmann, the basis for the investigators’ working hypothesis in the Munich case is, on the one hand, the findings of Austrian authorities. The 18-year-old is said to have reenacted executions in a video game using created avatars, said the vice president of the Bavarian State Criminal Police Office (LKA), Guido Limmer. When the young man was investigated last year, material was found on him that indicated sympathy with the Islamist organization Haiat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS). Whether he still had this sympathy or whether he sympathized with IS is currently unclear, said Tilmann.

On the other hand, according to investigators, the place and time point to such a motive: the perpetrator shot at the Nazi Documentation Center and the Israeli Consulate General in Munich on the anniversary of the 1972 Olympic attack.

According to information from the Austrian Interior Ministry, the father of the Munich attacker had perceived his son as having psychological problems. He was an intelligent student who had become a loner during the pandemic, it was said. At school, he had been confronted with taunts and teasing.

Shots fired at Nazi Documentation Center and Israeli Consulate

The 18-year-old is said to have fired a total of nine shots with his Swiss Wehrmacht carbine – first at buildings, including the Nazi Documentation Center and the neighboring Israeli Consulate General, which was closed at the time of the attack. Later, he apparently also shot at police officers. “The colleagues noticed a shot being fired at them. Of course, we have to find out in detail where exactly he was aiming,” said Munich police operations manager Christian Huber.

The police eventually shot the 18-year-old down with a large number of shots. A police officer and a woman suffered acoustic trauma, and the attacker died on the spot. The officers involved are being cared for, according to a police statement. The State Criminal Police Office is conducting routine investigations into the legality of the police shooting.

Carbine acquired from collector

The shooter had bought his weapon from a collector just one day before the attack, according to Austria’s Director General for Public Security, Franz Ruf. According to the LKA, the carbine with a mounted bayonet dates back to the 19th century. However, operations manager Huber emphasized that it was a “weapon with massive penetrating power.”

According to General Director Ruf, the 18-year-old had also bought around 50 rounds of ammunition for the carbine – although he was actually banned from owning weapons in Austria due to previous investigations and suspicions of radicalization. But carbines are considered Category C weapons there, which are reloaded manually after each shot: They can be purchased without a weapons document and only have to be registered with the authorities up to six weeks after purchase.

Bavarian police had no information about the shooter

Austrian investigators had not found any evidence of radicalization or Islamist propaganda, but at least they had the 18-year-old on their radar. In Bavaria, on the other hand, the young man with Bosnian roots was a blank slate for the state police until the shooting at the consulate. A query of the databases on the 18-year-old Austrian was negative, said a spokesman for the Bavarian State Office of Criminal Investigation (LKA). “We had no documents on him.”

According to the Munich Attorney General’s Office, the investigation is now focusing on the one hand on the previously suspected motive, but on the other hand also on the question of whether there might have been accomplices, helpers or at least people who knew about it. One question is whether the 18-year-old was involved in some kind of network, said ZET director Tilmann.

18-year-old also fired at neighboring buildings

With the Israeli Consulate General and the Nazi Documentation Center as possible targets of the alleged attack, the course of events also raises questions. Police descriptions indicate how amateurishly the man had apparently planned his crime. The 18-year-old also shot at neighboring buildings. He also entered two buildings, injuring himself and leaving a trail of blood. He tried to climb a fence to the Israeli Consulate General from a vehicle, but was unable to overcome it.

The shooter probably realized early on that his original plan could be thwarted: a passing patrol had spotted him as he got out of his car on Thursday morning and reported that he might have a weapon with him. A short time later, the 18-year-old was dead.