A series of car crashes on a Berlin motorway that left several people injured is being treated as an Islamist terror attack, German authorities have said.

“According to the current knowledge, it was an Islamist-motivated attack,” an official was quoted as saying.

Six people were injured, three of them severely, when a motorist drove into vehicles on a stretch of the German capital’s motorway on Tuesday night.

Police arrested a man at the scene after a device in his car, which the man said was dangerous, turned out to be a tool box. There are indications that the 30-year-old was suffering from psychological problems, Reuters reports.

Shouting by the suspect at the scene suggested that his actions could have been Islamist-motivated, authorities added.

A spokesperson for the Berlin public prosecutors was not available for comment

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