Munich mall shooting: 3 Turks among victims

A lone gunman shot dead nine people and injured 21 others after he went on a shooting spree at a busy mall in Munich on Friday night.

The attacker apparently took his own life.

Turkey's Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said that so far, three Turkish citizens were identified among the victims.

They were named as Sevda Dag, Can Leyla and Selcuk Kilic.

According to the Greek Foreign Ministry, a Greek man was among the people who died while three Kosovans were also confirmed dead.

The identity of the remaining two victims are still unknown.

The attack saw panicked shoppers fleeing the Olympia Shopping Mall a the Elite Police Unit launched a massive operation to track down what had initially been thought to be up to three assailants.

"The perpetrator was an 18-year-old German-Iranian from Munich," police chief Hubertus Andrae told reporters after the rampage.

The shooter had dual citizenship and "no criminal record".

"The motive or explanation for this crime is completely unclear."

The shooter had received psychiatric care and had no ties to the DAESH terrorist group.

A statement from authorities came after explosive experts from Munich police examined a backpack found on a dead man thought to be the lone assailant in the rampage.

Residents from the neighbourhoods near the mall arrived at the scene on Saturday morning to pay tribute to the victims.

The attacker's body was found about a kilometre away from where the shootings took place.

"We suspect terrorism," a police spokesman in the Bavarian capital said earlier.

A video posted on social media appeared to show a man dressed in black walking away from a McDonald's restaurant while firing repeatedly on people as they fled screaming.

German police took to twitter requesting people not to upload pictures of victims and "show more respect," also appealing for the footage to be handed over to the them to assist the ongoing investigation.

Germany has so far escaped the kind of large-scale terrorist attacks seen in neighbouring France and neither the motives nor the identity of the supposed gunman were known.

Munich's main train station was evacuated and metro and bus transport in the city suspended for several hours while residents were ordered to stay in their homes, leaving the streets largely deserted.

By early Saturday, transport services were running again, Munich police said.

Friday's attack took place a week after a 17-year-old asylum-seeker wounded passengers on a German train in an axe rampage.

Bavarian police shot dead the teenager after he wounded four people from Hong Kong on the train and also injured a local resident before being shot by police.

DAESH had claimed responsibility for that attack.

Chancellor Angela Merkel will convene her security council on Saturday to address the shooting in the European economic powerhouse which took in more than one million migrants and refugees last year.

"We are determined to do everything we can so that terror and inhuman violence stand no chance in Germany," her chief of staff Peter Altmaier said.

The incidents in Germany follow an attack in Nice, France, which took place on Bastille Day where upon a Tunisian drove a truck into crowds, killing 84 people.

DAESH had also claimed responsibility for that attack.