A still image from an undated video Islamic State posted July 19, 2016 in which a man whom it identifies as the Afghan refugee who attacked passengers with an axe on a train in Germany vows to carry out a suicide mission
A still image from an undated video Islamic State posted July 19, 2016 in which a man whom it identifies as the Afghan refugee who attacked passengers with an axe on a train in Germany vows to carry out a suicide mission and urges other Muslims to do the same. Social Media via REUTERS TV

(From AFP)

German authorities have cast doubt on whether a teenager who went on an ax rampage on a Bavarian train was really an Afghan refugee, saying Wednesday he might have been from Pakistan.

A still image from an undated video Islamic State posted July 19, 2016 in which a man whom it identifies as the Afghan refugee who attacked passengers with an axe on a train in Germany vows to carry out a suicide mission
A still image from an undated video Islamic State posted July 19, 2016 in which a man, whom it identifies as the Afghan refugee who attacked passengers with an ax on a train in Germany, vows to carry out a suicide mission and urges other Muslims to do the same. Social Media via REUTERS TV

The Islamic State group released a video on Tuesday purportedly featuring the 17-year-old, who was shot dead by police following the train attack in which he injured five people, two of them critically.

However, sources close to the German security services now think he might have pretended to be Afghan on arrival in Germany in 2015 in order to have a better chance at securing asylum, television station ZDF reported.

In the IS video, the youth uses phrases of a dialect of Pashto spoken in Pakistan and not Afghanistan and experts have indicated that his accent is also clearly Pakistani, ZDF said. Read More

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