SOLINGEN: German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said on Monday the government would tighten weapons controls and speed up deportations after a suspected knife attack in the western city of Solingen.
Friday night's deadly stabbing at a street festival has reignited a debate over immigration in the country and put extra pressure on Scholz ahead of key regional elections set for Sunday.
"This was terrorism, terrorism against us all," Scholz said on a visit to Solingen, where he laid flowers at a memorial to the victims.
A 26-year-old Syrian with suspected links to the IS group is alleged to have carried out the attack, which left three people dead and eight more wounded.
"We will now have to tighten up the weapons regulations... in particular with regard to the use of knives," Scholz said. Stronger weapons controls would come "very quickly", Scholz said.
Germany would also have to "do everything we can to ensure that those who cannot and must not stay here in Germany are repatriated and deported," Scholz said.
The IS group on Saturday said one of its members had carried out the attack in an act of "revenge". The group subsequently published a video via the Amaq news agency purporting to show the Solingen attack, in which the veiled man said he intended to carry out reprisals for "massacres" in the Middle East and beyond.
The suspected attacker has raised concerns in Germany for the seeming ease with which he avoided authorities attempts to remove him.
According to the Bild and Spiegel news outlets, the suspect arrived in Germany in December 2022 and had a protected immigration status often given to those fleeing war-torn Syria. The suspect was not known to German security services as a dangerous extremist, according to officials.
The attack spurred a new debate around immigration in the EU's most populous country ahead of regional elections next weekend in Saxony and Thuringia, where the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) is set to make gains. The attack would strengthen the perception that the government was "overwhelmed", Ursula Muench said, the director of the Academy for Political Education. — AFP
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