German Chancellor Olaf Scholz arrives at the town hall before visiting the site where three people were killed and several injured in a stabbing attack at a festival, in Solingen, Germany, August 26, 2024.
| Photo Credit: Via Reuters

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said Monday (August 26, 2024) that the government would tighten weapons controls and speed up deportations after a suspected Islamist 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 Mr. Scholz ahead of key regional elections set for Sunday (September 1) .

Explained | Gun laws in countries outside the U.S.

“This was terrorism, terrorism against us all,” Mr. 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 Islamic State group is alleged to have carried out the attack, which left three people dead and eight more wounded.

Mr. Scholz said he was “angry… at the Islamists who threaten our peaceful coexistence”.

“We will now have to tighten up the weapons regulations… in particular with regard to the use of knives,” Mr. Scholz said.

Stronger weapons controls would come “very quickly”, Mr. 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,” Mr. Scholz said.

Islamic state link

The suspect, named Issa Al H., was able to evade the police after the attack before reportedly handing himself into law enforcement on Saturday evening.

The Syrian was detained on suspicion of murder, attempted murder and belonging to a “terrorist group”.

The Islamic State group on Saturday (August 24) said one of its members had carried out the attack in an act of “revenge”.

The group subsequently published a video via the jihadists’ 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 claim could not be immediately verified.

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.

He was meant to have been deported to Bulgaria, where he had first arrived in the European Union, but he went missing.

The suspect was not known to German security services as a dangerous extremist, according to officials.

Immigration debate

According to federal police figures, almost 52,976 people were supposed to be deported or expelled from Germany last year.

Successful deportations however only took place in 21,206 instances — less than half of the total planned — often because the individuals concerned were “not handed over” to police.

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, the director of the Academy for Political Education, said.

The AfD has accused successive governments of contributing to “chaos” by allowing in too many immigrants, and called for a stop to new entries.

Friedrich Merz, the leader of the CDU, Germany’s main opposition party, meanwhile urged the government to stop taking in refugees from Syria and Afghanistan.

The government — a fraught coalition between Scholz’s Social Democrats, the Greens, and the pro-business FDP — had already announced moves to toughen immigration rules.

Following an attack by a 25-year-old Afghan at an anti-Islam rally in Mannheim in May, the government said it would look to restart deportations directly to Afghanistan and Syria after years in which they were halted.

German security services have been on high alert for Islamist attacks since the Gaza war erupted on October 7 with the Hamas attacks on Israel.

Germany has been hit by several such attacks in recent years, with the most deadly being a truck rampage at a Berlin Christmas market in 2016 that killed 12 people.

A woman kneels at a makeshift memorial of flowers and candles for the victims on August 24, 2024 close to the scene where at least three people were killed and several injured when a man attacked them with a knife on late August 23, 2024 in Solingen, western Germany.
| Photo Credit: AFP

German police said early on Sunday (August 25, 2024) that a 26-year-old man turned himself in, claiming to be behind the deadly Solingen knife attack that left three dead and eight wounded at a festival marking the city’s 650th anniversary.

Düsseldorf police said in a joint statement with the prosecutor’s office that the man “stated that he was responsible for the attack,” adding he had been arrested before, but didn’t provide details. “This person’s involvement in the crime is currently being intensively investigated,” the statement said.

On Saturday (August 25, 2024) the Islamic State militant group claimed responsibility for the attack, without providing evidence. The extremist group said on its news site that the attacker targeted Christians and that he carried out the assaults Friday night “to avenge Muslims in Palestine and everywhere.” The claim couldn’t be independently verified.

Officials had earlier said a 15-year-old boy was arrested on suspicion he knew about the planned attack and failed to inform authorities, but that he was not the attacker. Two female witnesses told police they overheard the boy and an unknown person before the attack speaking about intentions that corresponded to the bloodshed, officials said.

People alerted police shortly after 9:30 p.m. local time Friday that a man had assaulted several people with a knife on the city’s central square, the Fronhof. The three people killed were two men aged 67 and 56 and a 56-year-old woman, authorities said. Police said the attacker appeared to have deliberately aimed for his victims’ throats.

Solingen, a city of about 160,000 residents near the bigger cities of Cologne and Düsseldorf, was holding a “Festival of Diversity” to celebrate its anniversary. It began Friday and was supposed to run through Sunday, with several stages in central streets offering attractions such as live music, cabaret and acrobatics. The attack took place in front of one stage.

The festival was cancelled as police looked for clues in the cordoned-off square.