Germany: Second shooting incident in Landsberg; suspects hijack a car

Another shooting incident is being reported in the German town of Landsberg within less than an hour after Halle shooting on Wednesday. An attack in the German city of Halle left two people dead, as per the local police. Several other people were also injured in the Halle shooting that took place near a synagogue. There is no established link between the shooting incidents in Landsberg and Halle as of now. No injuries have been reported from Landsberg.

German police have detained one suspect in Halle but advised people to remain vigilant nonetheless. Our forces have detained one person," local police said on Twitter. "Please nonetheless remain vigilant." Earlier, police tweeted: "According to initial findings, two people were killed in Halle. There were several shots."

The shootings in Germany's Halle and Landsberg occurred on Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the year in Judaism when Jews fast for more than 24 hours, seeking atonement.

Anti-Semitism is especially sensitive in Germany, which during World War Two was responsible for the genocide of 6 million Jews in the Nazi Holocaust. Despite comprehensive de-Nazification in the post-war era, fears of resurgent anti-Semitic hatred have never completely gone away, whether from far-right neo-Nazis or more recently from Muslim immigrants.

Occasional past attacks have ranged from the scrawling of Nazi swastikas on gravestones to firebombings at synagogues and even several murders. In recent years, cases of assault or verbal abuse, in some cases directed against people wearing traditional Jewish skullcaps, have raised an outcry.

Update 1: German Federal Prosecutors are taking over investigations related to shooting on Yom Kippur, Germany's Spiegel Magazine reported.

Update 2: Mayor of Germany's Landsberg has said that shooting suspects hijacked a car, Reuters reported.