Skip to main content

Explosion near German train station injures 2

BERLIN (AP) — An explosion near a German train station followed by the discovery of a suspicious object caused police to temporarily close the transport hub in the southern city of Augsburg on Wednesday morning.

Later in the morning, police said the suspicious object had been identified as harmless and that the train station was reopened again at 10 a.m. and trains starting running again.

“We can give the all-clear — the object we found in front of the main train station was harmless, and we have reopened the station,” police spokesperson Timo Küfner told The Associated Press. “The train are running again, too.”

An unidentified object exploded in a passageway near the station at around 3:15 a.m., according to officials, causing minor injuries to two people. The people injured were a 17-year-old girl and an 18-year-old man, both of whom are Ukrainian citizens, the German news agency dpa reported.

Later, another second suspicious object that did not explode was discovered right at the main train station, Küfner said, leading to the shutdown of the train station at 8:30 in the morning.

Explosives experts from the Bavarian state criminal police office were investigating at the scene.

“It’s still too early to say anything about a possible motive for the overnight explosion, but we are investigating,” said Küfner.

Road traffic and public transportation in the vicinity of the station were disrupted in the early morning hours but later traffic was running normally again, police said.

Augsburg is a city of 308,000 residents in Bavaria, about 78 kilometers (48 miles) northwest of Munich.

Lawmakers ask Army to explain why it told a military unit to stop specializing in drone warfare

WASHINGTON (AP) — A bipartisan group of U.S. lawmakers is pressing the Army to explain why it told a unit based in Europe to stop specializing in drone warfare, an order that comes as the world's battlefields rapidly evolve and military tactics increasingly rely on uncrewed systems to fight. The 173rd Airborne Brigade was building its own drones and practicing the kind of warfare that Ukraine has pioneered against Russia and that Iran has fought against the U.S. — warfare that has killed and wounded American troops. The brigade of 600 soldiers was set up in November to be deployed anywhere that drones were needed. "We have deep concerns that eliminating this specialized drone unit will limit our ability to learn from allies, particularly the Ukrainian Armed Forces, and hinder our efforts to modernize drone warfare at the speed necessary to compete on the modern battlefield," the lawmakers said in a letter shared with The Associated Press. It requests a briefing from the Army to explain its decision and was sent Tuesday to departing Army Secretary Dan Driscoll and Gen. Christopher LaNeve, the Army’s acting chief of staff. It was signed by Democratic Sen. Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, Republican Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina, independent Sen. Angus King of Maine and Republican Rep. Mike Turner of Ohio.
Read Next Story