A train carriage “looked like a slaughterhouse” after a teenage refugee ran rampant with a hatchet and a knife in Germany overnight.
The 17-year-old was shot dead by police after leaving four passengers in a critical condition and many others injured or in shock.
Photos taken of the crime scene outside Wurzburg in central Germany showed blood all over the floor of the carriage.
“I have never in my life seen so much blood,” a local told Bild.
“It looked like a slaughterhouse.”
The Afghan teenager was killed as he tried to flee, police said.
Joachim Herrmann, the interior minister of Bavaria state, said the assailant had arrived as an unaccompanied minor in Germany and was living nearby in Ochsenfurt.
“It is quite probable that this was an Islamist attack,” said a ministry spokesman, adding that the attacker had shouted “Allahu akbar” (God is greatest).
The attack happened around 9.15pm local time (5.15am AEST) on the train, which runs between Treuchlingen and Wuerzburg in Bavaria.
Germany had thus far escaped the kind of large-scale jihadist attacks seen in the southern French city of Nice last week, in which 31-year-old Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel used a truck to mow down people leaving a Bastille Day fireworks display, killing 84 people in an attack claimed by Islamic State.
In May in Germany, a mentally unstable 27-year-old man carried out a knife attack on a regional train in the south, killing one person and injuring three others.
Early reports suggested he had yelled “Allahu akbar” but police later said there was no evidence pointing to a religious motive. He is being held in a psychiatric hospital.
Germany let in a record nearly 1.1 million asylum seekers last year, with Syrians the largest group followed by Afghans fleeing ongoing turmoil and poverty in their country.
The number of refugees arriving in Germany has fallen sharply as a result of the closure of the Balkans migration route and an EU deal with Turkey to stem the flow.
In April, May and June, the number was around 16,000 each month, less than a fifth of the tally seen at the start of the year, according to official figures.
Bavaria is governed by the Christian Social Union (CSU), sister party to Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservative Christian Democrats.
The CSU has been loudly critical of Merkel’s welcoming stance toward asylum seekers, a split that threatened the unity of the ruling coalition in Berlin and sent the government’s approval ratings plunging.
It has also lent support to a right-wing populist party, Alternative for Germany, which was founded as a Eurosceptic protest party in 2013 but now mainly rails against Islam and Germany’s refugee influx.
It currently polls at more than 10 percent and is represented in half of Germany’s 16 states as well as the European Parliament.
The attack in Bavaria is likely to revive political tensions.
© Nine Digital Pty Ltd 2016
Hopefully the German people will figure out exactly why these invaders are in their country, and start fighting for their lives before it’s too late.
And after they secure their own safety by wiping out the Muslims, they can get around to hanging Merkel for being a Zionist traitor.
Did you ever hear about anything like this happening in Germany BEFORE that treasonous bitch opened the border to a legion of rapists and murderers?
I guess some liberals have to learn about “political correctness” the hard way, and so be it, but one way or another, they’re going to learn.
also remember that merkel during the coldwar was a high ranking member in the E,German govt.a member of the stasi.
“The attack in Bavaria is likely to revive political tensions.”
Goal achieved, then.