IS hand suspected in German train attack

German authorities said they had found a hand-painted IS flag among the belongings of the asylum seeker, who seriously injured four members of a family of tourists from Hong Kong in his rampage. The teenage assailant was killed as he tried to flee. 

“The perpetrator of the stabbing attack in Germany was one of the fighters of the Islamic State,” the IS-linked Amaq news agency said. 

The assault on a regional train near the southern city of Wuerzburg late Monday left two of the victims critically hurt, said Joachim Herrmann, the interior minister of Bavaria state. 

“We hope that those who were gravely injured survive,” Herrmann told ZDF public television. 

The terrifying assault in Bavaria is likely to revive a heated national debate about integrating migrants and refugees after a record influx last year. 

The assailant had arrived as an unaccompanied minor in Germany about two years ago and had been staying with a foster family in the region for the last two weeks, Herrmann said. 

“It is quite probable that this was an Islamist attack,” said a ministry spokesman hours after the attack, adding that the assailant was heard shouting Allahu akbar (God is greatest).