"We found a man who killed himself. "Our hearts go out to those who may have been injured. The third attack on civilians in Europe in barely a week saw panicked shoppers fleeing the Olympia (OEZ) mall as elite police launched a massive operation to track down what had initially been thought to be up to three assailants. We assume that he was the only shooter," police said on Twitter.Nine people were killed in the shooting that began early Friday evening, with 21 injured according to the latest official toll.The statement from authorities came after explosives experts from the Munich police examined a backpack found on a dead man thought to be the lone assailant in the rampage, German DPA news agency reported.The man’s body was found about one kilometre (0.6 miles) away from the mall where the shootings took place, DPA said. "We suspect terrorism," a police spokesman in the Bavarian capital said earlier, but there were no immediate indications of an Islamist link.A video posted on social media appeared to show a man dressed in black walking away from a McDonald’s restaurant while firing repeatedly on people as they fled screaming.Germany has so far escaped the kind of large-scale jihadist attacks seen in neighbouring France and neither the motives nor the identity of the supposed gunman were known.Munich’s main train station was evacuated and metro and bus transport in the city suspended for several hours while residents were ordered to stay in their homes, leaving the streets largely deserted.By early Saturday, transport services were running again, Munich police said.Chancellor Angela Merkel will convene her security council on Saturday to address the deadly rampage in the European economic powerhouse which took in more than one million migrants and refugees last year.

Source: The Nation Bangkok July 23, 2016 00:22 UTC