19-Jul-16: Tentacles in Germany: Again, a train, an axe, a religious war-cry, innocent victims and a search for motives

Sadly familiar: Disingenuous reporting from
Aljazeera where the "real" victim gets
mentioned in the headline and motive is always
a deep mystery [Source]

From Associated Press this morning:

A man armed with an ax and a knife attacked passengers aboard a regional train in southern Germany | Police kill attacker who slashed passengers on German train
Monday, July 18, 2016 | BERLIN (AP) — A man armed with an ax and a knife attacked passengers aboard a regional train in southern Germany on Monday night, injuring four people before he was shot and killed by police as he fled. Wuerzburg police said on their Facebook page that three of the victims suffered serious injuries and one was slightly injured. Another 14 people were being treated for shock. Police said there was not yet any information on the motive behind the attack, nor details on the identity of the attacker. The train was on its way from the Bavarian town of Treuchtlingen to Wuerzburg, which is about 60 miles (100 kilometers) northwest of Nuremberg.

Certainly not the first such recent attack on a European train [background]. And reminiscent of an attack in May 2016 when a man shouting "Allahu Akbar" stabbed one innocent victim to death and slashed three others at a railway station near Munich. That act of evident jihad "raised fears that Germany... was now being targeted by Islamist extremists". That's a dramatic revelation.

And did we mention the role of "Allahu Akbar" in last night's attempted murder-by-slashing? Though it does not get mentioned at all in AP's report or in the vast majority of newspapers this morning, one British source says

Police have confirmed that 18 people have been injured in the horrifying attack - which began in a train this evening. Four are understood to be seriously injured. A 17-year-old Afghan refugee believed to be behind the attack was shot dead by police as he reportedly charged at them following the incident at Würzburg-Heidingsfeld station. The boy is reported to have shouted "Allahu Akbar" before the attack... The Bavarian Interior Ministry has now confirmed the attacker shouted ‘Allahu Akbar’ (God is great) before hacking at passengers... An official has said the incident was ‘probably’ linked to Islamic extremism.

Aljazeera manages to avoid touching on any issues of religion or the theological war cries in telling what happened. It's sadly typical of a certain kind of disingenuous reporting in which they specialize there. See "Afghan refugee shot dead after train attack in Germany" and note whose victimhood is mentioned in the carefully-phrased headline.

Here's how German's state broadcaster recounts what happened:

Bavarian Interior Minister Joachim Hermann confirmed in a television interview that the teenager boarded the train in Ochsenfurt, where he had been staying with a foster family after traveling unaccompanied to Germany to seek asylum. "The attacker appears to have been a 17-year-old Afghan who has been living in Ochsenfurt for some time," Herrmann said. "He suddenly attacked passengers with a knife and an axe, critically injuring several. Some of them may now be fighting for their lives." The Afghan national reportedly shouted "Allahu Akbar" before launching the attack, wielding a knife and axe. "The perpetrator was able to leave the train, police left in pursuit and as part of this pursuit, they shot the attacker and killed him," a police spokesman said. The motive of the attack was not immediately clear.

The BBC says

Although the motive has not been established, the BBC's Damien McGuinness in Berlin says there is nervousness in Germany about attacks by Islamist extremists following the attacks across the border in France.

Yes, we can fully understand the nervousness.

But among the questions we're left to ponder: don't they do careful checks of passengers on public transport in Germany to see if they happen to be carrying axes? Or knives? Perhaps they should.

And at what point, under what circumstances, does the motive of a young man with a knife and an axe and an urge to kill people by slashing them to death while invoking an only-too-familiar religious war cry become "immediately clear"? If ever?