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Man attacks bus passengers, 10 hurt

BERLIN (AP) — A man armed with a kitchen knife attacked passengers Friday on a crowded city bus in northern Germany before being overpowered and arrested, authorities said. Ten people were injured, three of them seriously.

Authorities had no immediate information on the assailant’s motive for the afternoon attack on a city bus in Luebeck, near the Baltic coast northeast of Hamburg, but said they had no indication that he was politically radicalized or had any terrorist background.

Investigators found a flammable substance in a backpack aboard the bus, but no explosives.

The incident started when the assailant set fire to the backpack, prosecutor Ulla Hingst said at a Friday evening news conference in Luebeck.

The driver told investigators that he stopped the bus and opened all the doors to let passengers out after noticing the fire in his rear-view mirror.

He then walked back to find out what was going on and was hit by the assailant, Hingst said. As the suspect left the bus, he stabbed people around him with a 5-inch kitchen knife. The attacker was overpowered by passengers outside the vehicle, then quickly arrested by police nearby.

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