Suspect admits he targeted US military personnel: official
Source: Agencies |
March 4, 2011, Friday
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THE suspect in the slaying of two US airmen at Frankfurt airport has confessed to targeting American military members, a German security official said yesterday as investigators probed what they considered a possible act of Islamic terrorism.
German federal prosecutors took over the investigation into Wednesday's shooting, which also injured two US airmen, one of them critically. They are working together with US authorities.
Hesse state Interior Minister Boris Rhein said in Wiesbaden that the suspect, identified as a 21-year-old ethnic Albanian from Kosovo, was apparently radicalized over the last few weeks. The attacker's family in northern Kosovo identified him as Arid Uka, whose family has been living in Germany for 40 years.
The suspect opened fire on a busload of US airmen on their way from their base in England to serve in Afghanistan, said Marine Colonel Dave Lapan, a Pentagon spokesman.
Uka's family said he worked at Frankfurt airport and was a devout Muslim. He was taken into custody immediately after the shooting and appeared late yesterday in federal court in Karlsruhe.
There was disagreement yesterday between German and American officials whether the suspect may have had help. So far, German investigators thought he did not, but Americans were not ruling that out yet.
"From our investigation so far we conclude that he acted alone," Rhein said. "So far we cannot see a network."
Though the US Embassy in Kosovo's capital of Pristina referred to "the act of a single individual," Lapan at the Pentagon said it was still not clear whether others could have been involved in planning the attack.
"One of the key focuses of the investigation will be to determine whether others were involved in the incident besides the shooter," Lapan said.
Federal prosecutors said the suspect was accused of killing two US military personnel and seriously injuring two others.
"Given the circumstances, there is a suspicion that the act was motivated by Islamism," they said in a statement, without elaborating.
Rhein said the suspect's apartment and his computer have been searched and investigators were looking to shed further light on his motives.
German federal prosecutors took over the investigation into Wednesday's shooting, which also injured two US airmen, one of them critically. They are working together with US authorities.
Hesse state Interior Minister Boris Rhein said in Wiesbaden that the suspect, identified as a 21-year-old ethnic Albanian from Kosovo, was apparently radicalized over the last few weeks. The attacker's family in northern Kosovo identified him as Arid Uka, whose family has been living in Germany for 40 years.
The suspect opened fire on a busload of US airmen on their way from their base in England to serve in Afghanistan, said Marine Colonel Dave Lapan, a Pentagon spokesman.
Uka's family said he worked at Frankfurt airport and was a devout Muslim. He was taken into custody immediately after the shooting and appeared late yesterday in federal court in Karlsruhe.
There was disagreement yesterday between German and American officials whether the suspect may have had help. So far, German investigators thought he did not, but Americans were not ruling that out yet.
"From our investigation so far we conclude that he acted alone," Rhein said. "So far we cannot see a network."
Though the US Embassy in Kosovo's capital of Pristina referred to "the act of a single individual," Lapan at the Pentagon said it was still not clear whether others could have been involved in planning the attack.
"One of the key focuses of the investigation will be to determine whether others were involved in the incident besides the shooter," Lapan said.
Federal prosecutors said the suspect was accused of killing two US military personnel and seriously injuring two others.
"Given the circumstances, there is a suspicion that the act was motivated by Islamism," they said in a statement, without elaborating.
Rhein said the suspect's apartment and his computer have been searched and investigators were looking to shed further light on his motives.
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