Suspect arrested after bus driver and passenger killed and two other US airmen injured in shooting at Frankfurt airport

This article is more than 9 years old

This article is more than 9 years old

Two US airmen have been shot dead and two wounded at Frankfurt airport.

The gunman, believed to be from Kosovo, opened fire on a bus containing US airmen in front of Terminal 2. The bus driver and a passenger were killed and two others were seriously injured.

Police said it appeared an argument had broken out on board the bus before the suspect opened fire. The dead soldier was found outside the bus, which had a US government licence plate marked "AF", for air force.

The two injured had been shot in the head and chest, police said. The gunman fled from the scene and a suspect was arrested inside the terminal shortly afterwards.

Police would not give out any information on the suspect, but Kosovo said he was one of its citizens.

Kosovo's interior minister, Bajram Rexhepi, said German police had identified the suspect as 21-year-old Arif Uka, from the northern town of Mitrovica.

"This is a devastating and a tragic event," Rexhepi said. "We are trying to find out was this something that was organised or what was the nature of the attack."

The Pentagon and the US air force had no immediate information on the incident.

Patrick Meehan, a member of the US homeland security committee, said it looked like a terrorist attack.

The worst previous attack on US soldiers on German soil was in 1986, when a bomb was planted in a Berlin disco. Two soldiers died along with a Turkish woman, and 230 people were injured, including 44 Americans. The US blamed Libya and bombed Tripoli and Bengazi in retaliation.

In the 70s and 80s, the leftwing German terror group Red Army Faction repeatedly targeted US soldiers in Germany.