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The militant group Islamic State has claimed responsibility for a knife attack in the western German city of Solingen on Friday night that left three people dead.

It called the man who carried out the attack a “soldier of the Islamic State,” in a statement on its Telegram account. “He carried out the attack as revenge for Muslims in Palestine and everywhere,” the militant group continued.

Police continued their search for the alleged perpetrator, who fled the scene and is still at large.

The attack took place on the Fronhof, a market square in Solingen, where locals were listening to live bands as part of a three-day festival celebrating the city’s 650th anniversary.

According to police, the attackers began attacking passers-by around 9:40 p.m. on Friday evening, killing three people and injuring eight, five of them seriously.

The attack took place in front of a stage where bands were playing. The festival was immediately called off and police asked visitors to provide photos and films of the event to help with their investigation.

Police cordoned off Fronhofplein on Saturday and passers-by placed candles and flowers outside the fences.

“We are shocked and sad,” Solingen Mayor Tim-Oliver Kurzbach told reporters.

According to Markus Caspers, a representative of the Düsseldorf Public Prosecutor’s Office, authorities are treating the attack as a possible terrorist attack. No other motive is known and the victims do not appear to be related.

According to Thorsten Fleiss, a police official, it appeared the attacker was aiming for the throats of his victims.

Hendrik Wüst, prime minister of the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, where Solingen is located, said the attack had hit his region in the heart and was an “act of terror aimed at destroying our way of life”.

Interior Minister Nancy Faeser, speaking alongside Wüst, said society must stand together in the face of such incidents. “At such times, we will not let ourselves be divided,” she said.

Police said Saturday that they had arrested a man and were investigating him for possible links to the incident. They later said he was not the perpetrator; police suspect he had prior knowledge of the attack but failed to alert authorities.

Chancellor Olaf Scholz said he was “shocked to the core” by the attack. “An attacker brutally murdered several people,” he wrote on X. “We mourn the victims and stand with their families… The perpetrator must be caught and punished with the full force of the law.”

Herbert Reul, the region’s interior minister, arrived at the scene late Friday night and told reporters: “What you see here on the spot is simply beyond comprehension. It’s just depressing.”

He said his thoughts were with the families of the victims and those injured in the attack.

Mayor Tim Kurzbach of Solingen on Facebook: “Tonight we in Solingen are all in shock. Horror and great sadness.”

“Hopefully the emergency services will succeed in saving the lives of the injured and catching the cowardly and pitiful perpetrator, who is still on the run,” Federal Health Minister Karl Lauterbach wrote on X.

The incident comes amid growing concerns about knife crime in Germany. Faeser recently proposed stricter rules on knife possession, reducing the maximum length of knives that can be carried in public.

In June, a police officer died from injuries sustained in a knife attack by an Afghan civilian during a right-wing demonstration in the southwestern city of Mannheim.

Later that month, a 27-year-old Afghan man was shot dead by police in the eastern German town of Wolmirstedt after stabbing a man to death and then wounding several others at a private garden party during the European Championship.