Angela Merkel's refugee policy likely to come back under fire after ax attack

(Image credit: JOHN MACDOUGALL/AFP/Getty Images)

published 19 July 2016

Critics could soon be going after German Chancellor Angela Merkel's open-door immigration policy with renewed energy after a 17-year-old Afghani asylum-seeker carried out an ax attack on a train in Würzburg, Germany, on Monday. "In the minds of many people, [the attacker's] arrival is directly linked to Merkel and her liberal refugee policies," Frank Decker, a political scientist at Bonn University, told Reuters on Tuesday; the teenager entered Germany with a wave of migrants last year.

Already, Merkel has faced harsh criticism for allowing "hundreds of thousands of migrants" into Germany in the last year, an influx that, for some, has raised dire safety concerns. The Islamic State has claimed responsibility for the attack, which injured at least five people. The unidentified suspect was shot dead by police after he fled the train.