03/02/2011
Shooting at Frankfurt Airport
US Soldiers Believed Among Dead in Killings
A gunman at Frankfurt Airport, Germany's largest international hub, reportedly fired at several United States soldiers in a military bus on Wednesday, killing at least two people and seriously injuring two others. Wire reports suggest the two dead were likely American soldiers.
German news agency DPA is reporting that police arrested a 21-year-old male suspect from Kosovo following the attack. A police spokesperson said it was too early to determine if the attack had been politically motivated or an act of terrorism.
In Berlin, German Chancellor Angela Merkel condemned the shootings as a "terrible incident" and promised a full investigation, the Associated Press reported.
Just after the attack, police still hadn't been able to determine the circumstances of the shooting. "It appears that everything happened in the bus," police spokesman Jürgen Linker told DPA.
Initial reports suggested that a soldier and the bus driver were killed in the shooting. Another Frankfurt police spokesman said the shootings took place at 3:20 p.m. in a non-secure, public part of the airport's Terminal 2.
A number of US military bases are located near Frankfurt, and soldiers regularly use the airport to fly between Germany and the United States.
US military officials in Germany referred calls to the the Air Force, but officials there were not prepared to make a statement on the incident late Wednesday afternoon.Although German police have not commented on the identity of the suspect, Bajram Rexhepi, Kosovo's interior minister, told the AP that German police have detained and identified Arik Uka, a citizen of Kosovo.
"The is a devastating and tragic event," Rexhepi told the wire service. "We are trying to find out was this something that was organized or what was the nature of the attack."
dsl -- with wires
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