A suspect with “Islamist links” has been detained by German police following a bomb attack on the bus of Borussia Dortmund football team.
It’s understood one of the three explosives used in the attack on Tuesday evening contained metal strips.
Two letters claiming responsibility for the attack were also being investigated.
The incident is being treated as a terror attack but the exact motive remains unclear.
A spokeswoman for Germany’s federal state prosecutor in Karlsruhe, Frauke Koehler, told the BBC: “Two suspects from the Islamist spectrum have become the focus of our investigation. Both of their apartments were searched, and one of the two has been detained.”
(Photo: 2017 Anadolu Agency)
She added: “Among other things they demand the withdrawal of [German] tornado fighter jets from Syria and, I quote, the closure of Rammstein airbase.”
A letter found near the scene referred to 2016’s attack on a Berlin market which was carried out by a Daesh-inspired terrorist and the fact that German surveillance aircraft are being used in Syria.
The letter reportedly written in German began: “In the Name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful.”
Police are looking at the authenticity of a second letter claiming responsibility which, it said, could have come from anti-fascists.
The first letter allegedly claimed that German warplanes are involved in murdering Muslims in the self-declared caliphate of the Islamic State group.
(Photo: 2017 Getty Images)
It also said sports stars and other prominent people “in Germany and other crusader nations” are on a “death list of the Islamic State”.
The letter, published online, said the threat against high-profile public figures will last until German planes are withdrawn from the war zone, and the US air base at Ramstein, near the French border, is closed.
Football fans are not mentioned as targets, and there is no signature.
The club has previously sought to clamp down on far-right groups in its fan base.
Social workers were brought in to deal with neo-Nazi activists amid unrest over immigration levels in the Ruhr Valley, in the west of the country.