A 26-year-old man suspected of a stabbing rampage in the western German town of Solingen has today been taken into police custody, Der Spiegel and other media are reporting, some 24 hours after the attack that killed three people.

Police declined to immediately comment.

The Isis (Islamic State) group earlier claimed responsibility for the knife attack that also wounded eight people.

A man stabbed several people in the Fronhof, a market square in Solingen, during a festival.

Police stand near the scene of an attack where there were fatalities and injuries after the city's 650th-anniversary celebrations. Photo / Getty Images

Also earlier today NZT, police had said they made a second arrest as part of a police operation at a home for refugees in Solingen. Police did not provide more details on the individual or the connection to the incident.

Police had also detained a teenager in connection to the attack but said the perpetrator was still at large.

Describing the man who carried out the attack as a “soldier of the Islamic State”, the Isis militant group said in a statement on its Telegram account: “he carried out the attack in revenge for Muslims in Palestine and everywhere”.

It did not immediately provide any evidence for its assertion and it was not clear how close any relationship between the attacker and Isis was.

Police spent the day conducting a manhunt. The teen detained was a 15-year-old who police were investigating for a possible link to the attacker.

The Fronhof is a market square where live bands were playing as part of a festival marking the western German city’s 650th anniversary.

Markus Caspers, an official with the public prosecutor’s office in Dusseldorf, said authorities were treating the attack as a possible terrorist incident because there was no other known motive and the victims seemed unrelated.

A police official, Thorsten Fleiss, said the assailant appeared to aim for his victims’ throats.

“The perpetrator must be quickly caught and punished to the fullest extent of the law,” Chancellor Olaf Scholz said in a post on X.

Police cordoned off the square and passers-by placed candles and flowers outside the barriers.

“We are full of shock and grief,” Solingen Mayor Tim-Oliver Kurzbach told journalists.

A German musician who goes by the name Topic said he was playing on a nearby stage when the incident occurred. He was told about what had happened but was asked to keep playing “to avoid causing a mass panic attack”, he posted on Instagram.

He was eventually told to stop, and “since the attacker was still on the run, we hid in a nearby store while police helicopters circled above us”, Topic wrote.

Authorities cancelled the remainder of the weekend festival.

Fatal stabbings and shootings are relatively rare in Germany. The Government said this month it wanted to toughen rules on knives that can be carried in public by reducing the maximum length allowed.

In June, a 29-year-old policeman was fatally stabbed in Mannheim during an attack at a right-wing demonstration. A stabbing attack on a train in 2021 injured several people.

North Rhine-Westphalia’s Interior Minister, Herbert Reul, visited the scene in Solingen today. He told reporters it was a targeted attack on human life.

North Rhine-Westphalia Interior Minister Herbert Reul says it was a targeted attack on human life. Photo / Getty Images

Solingen, well known for its knife manufacturing industry, is a city of some 165,000 people.

The episode comes ahead of three state elections next month in Thuringia, Saxony, and Brandenburg, in which the anti-immigrant far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) has a chance of winning.