First  came the crack of gunfire, then the panicked screams and the wail of sirens as an armed attacker launched a killing spree in the German city of Munich on Friday.

Nine people were killed and 16 wounded in the teenager's shooting rampage.German Chancellor Angela Merkel convened her security council yesterday after the shooting, which came just days after an axe attack on a train in the same German state, Bavaria, and just more than a week after a truck attack in the French Riviera city of Nice in which 84 people were killed.Residents were going about their shopping at the busy Olympia mall, some eating at a McDonald's, when the horror began.story_article_left1Panicked shoppers fled the building as armed antiterror police flooded the streets in search of what was initially thought to be three assailants.Authorities later discovered the body of the attacker - an 18-year-old German-Iranian believed to have acted alone - dead by his own hand just a kilometre from the mall.While the manhunt was under way, police had called on residents of Germany's third-largest city to stay indoors, throwing southern Germany's economic hub into lockdown."Attention - avoid the neighbourhood around the OEZ [Olympia]. Stay in your homes. Leave the street," a Munich police tweet said.The Bavarian capital's main train station was evacuated and bus, metro and tram services were suspended.Survivors of the rampage described terrifying scenes."We entered McDonald's to eat ... then there was panic, and people ran out," one woman told Bavarian public TV.She said she heard three gunshots, "children were crying, people rushed to the exit in panic".A video posted on social media appeared to show a man who was dressed in black walking away from a McDonald's outlet while firing repeatedly at a group of people, who screamed as they fled in panic.A man who said he worked at one of the shops in the mall described how he came face-to-face with the shooter."I looked towards him, he fired on two people and I fled the building by climbing a wall.mini_story_image_hright1"And then I saw bodies and injured people," he said.According to one of his colleagues, the attacker was wearing military boots and carrying a backpack.The shopping centre, which opened in the '70s and bills itself as Bavaria's biggest, was surrounded by armed police, while a helicopter buzzed overhead.The mall is not far from the Olympic stadium that hosted the 1972 Games and the athletes' village, site of the massacre of 11 Israeli athletes by the Palestinian Black September group.In a neighbourhood near the mall, schoolchildren and their parents were celebrating the end of the academic year when news of the shooting spree broke.The families rushed home, on foot or by car.Bars and cafes, normally bustling on a warm summer evening, quickly closed and TV stations broadcast footage of deserted streets.In a gesture of solidarity, Munich residents posted messages online inviting those stuck in the city into their homes.However, as the night wore on, the public was no closer to knowing why the shooter opened fire."The motive or explanation for this crime is completely unclear," police chief Hubertus Andrae told reporters.French President François Hollande called the Munich shooting a "disgusting terrorist attack".sub_head_start Gunman 'bullied for years' sub_head_endMunich police said the shooter's motive was "completely unclear". However, on a video he appears to say he had been bullied."The perpetrator was an 18-year-old German-Iranian from Munich," police chief Hubertus Andrae told reporters after the massacre on Friday that left 10 people dead, including the gunman.story_article_left2"The motive or explanation for this crime is completely unclear."Andrae said the shooter - who turned the gun on himself - had dual citizenship and no criminal record. Inquiries suggested the man had lived in the city for more than two years. His body was found less than a kilometre from the mall.A video appeared to show a gunman on the roof of a parking garage as he exchanged insults with people on a nearby balcony who referred to him as a foreigner."I'm German, I was born here," the assailant is heard to reply.An onlooker then calls him a "w****r" before the gunman tells the man to "shut your trap" and more shots are fired. The gunman also apparently claimed to have been "bullied for seven years".Early yesterday, police commandos, armed with night-vision equipment and dogs, raided an apartment in the Munich neighbourhood of Maxvorstadt where the German newspaper Bild said the gunman lived with his parents.While police initially called the mall shooting an act of terrorism, they said they had "no indication" it involved Islamic extremism.US intelligence officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said initial reports from their German counterparts indicated no apparent link between the shooter and Islamic State or other militant groups...