Lone gunman kills two US airmen outside Frankfurt airport

The attack on a US military services bus also left two others injured.

It happened outside terminal two of Frankfurt Airport, in Germany. Authorities investigating the shooting arrested a 21-year-old man from Kosovo.

Officials said yesterday there was no indication that the incident had been a terrorist attack but said that the gunman’s motive remained unclear.

A bus driver and a passenger were killed, one person suffered serious wounds and another slight injuries, according to a spokesman for Frankfurt Airport.

A US Air Force Europe (USAFE) spokeswoman confirmed that all four victims of the shooting were airmen. Although the incident happened in Germany, the two airmen who were killed were based in Britain.

A statement from USAFE said the names of the two men killed were being withheld for 24 hours until members of their families had been informed.

US President Barack Obama said he was “saddened” and “outraged” by the attack. In Berlin, German Chancellor Angela Merkel described the incident as a “terrible event”.

She said her sympathies were with the victims and their families, and pledged that Germany would do everything in its power to investigate the crime.

Kosovo Interior Minister Bajram Rexhepi said that German police had identified the suspect they arrested as a Kosovan citizen from the northern town of Mitrovica.

He said: “This is a devastating and a tragic event.

“We are trying to find out was this something that was organised or what was the nature of the attack.” A state official who went to the scene outside Europe’s second biggest airport said there were no indications that the shooting had been a terrorist attack.

The interior minister for the German state of Hesse, Boris Rhein, has also confirmed the man being held by police was from Kosovo.

He added: “Whether the incident was linked to terrorism I cannot say at this stage.”

Four people were convicted in Germany in March last year for plotting to bomb targets including Ramstein Air Base, near Frankfurt.

The US armed forces have a number of major bases in the area, which are used as hubs for operations in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Germany has more than 4,000 of its own troops in Afghanistan,

Last month the German parliament extended the country’s military involvement in Afghanistan by another year despite polls showing the mission’s unpopularity with the German public.