A teenager in black combat gear went on a shooting spree at his former school in Germany today, slaying at least 15 people before dying in a shootout with police, officials said. The death toll rose to 16 after am injured pupil died in hospital.
Ten pupils, three teachers and three passers-by were among those killed in the shooting.
Police said that several others were wounded in the shooting spree at the secondary school in Winnenden, near the southern city of Stuttgart.
Armed commandos with helicopters and dogs launched a massive hunt for the 17-year-old gunman, police sources told AFP that he was then killed in a fire-fight with police.
German television earlier reported that a suspect had been arrested but police said that he had fled the school in the direction of the town centre.
The editor of the local paper, Frank Nipkau, told television channel N-TV that eight pupils and two adults were shot dead at the secondary school.
"The gunman just sprayed bullets all around him," N-TV cited an unnamed witness as saying. A local radio journalist told the same channel that the ex-pupil had used a machine gun.
The Bild daily newspaper said on its website that police commandos had stormed the home of the 17-year-old's parents, where 18 weapons were legally held. It was unclear if the gunman used any these guns in his attack.
The picturesque town of Winnenden, which lies around 25km north-east of Stuttgart in the southern state of Baden-Wuerttemberg, has around 27,000 inhabitants.
Europe has been scarred by a number of fatal attacks on schools or nurseries in recent years, at least three of them in Germany.
In February 2002, a 22-year-old gunman killed the headmaster and seriously injured another person in a vocational training establishment he attended at Freising, near Munich.
Two months later, 16 people were killed at a high-school in Erfurt in eastern Germany, by a 19-year-old former student, who then killed himself.
In November 2006, a former student at a vocational school in Lower Saxony in northwestern Germany went a shooting spree in the establishment, injuring 37 people before turning his gun on himself.
He had warned of his intentions on the internet.
*AFP and AP
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Founder: Areej Selmi
Based: Gaza
Sectors: Internet, e-commerce
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COMPANY PROFILE
Name: HyperSpace
Started: 2020
Founders: Alexander Heller, Rama Allen and Desi Gonzalez
Based: Dubai, UAE
Sector: Entertainment
Number of staff: 210
Investment raised: $75 million from investors including Galaxy Interactive, Riyadh Season, Sega Ventures and Apis Venture Partners
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Stars: Ram Charan, Kiara Advani, Anjali, S J Suryah, Jayaram
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2000: Israel withdraws from Lebanon after nearly 30 years without an officially demarcated border. The UN establishes the Blue Line to act as the frontier.
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2011: Lebanon disputes Israeli-proposed line and submits documents to UN showing different EEZ. Cyprus offers to mediate without much progress.
2018: Lebanon signs first offshore oil and gas licencing deal with consortium of France’s Total, Italy’s Eni and Russia’s Novatek.
2018-2019: US seeks to mediate between Israel and Lebanon to prevent clashes over oil and gas resources.
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Dubai Bling season three
Cast: Loujain Adada, Zeina Khoury, Farhana Bodi, Ebraheem Al Samadi, Mona Kattan, and couples Safa & Fahad Siddiqui and DJ Bliss & Danya Mohammed
Rating: 1/5
BIGGEST CYBER SECURITY INCIDENTS IN RECENT TIMES
SolarWinds supply chain attack: Came to light in December 2020 but had taken root for several months, compromising major tech companies, governments and its entities
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