Five people, including three children, in hospital after Dublin stabbing

Irish police said five people, including three young children, have been taken to hospital following a serious public order incident in Dublin city center on Thursday that local media reported as a stabbing.

Police said in a statement that they were following a definite line of inquiry and not looking for any other person at this time.
One girl has sustained serious injuries and the other two children are being treated for less serious injuries, police said. An adult female is also being treated for serious injuries and an adult male has less serious injuries, police added.
Local media reported that the people were stabbed on Dublin’s Parnell Square, which is next to Dublin city’s main thoroughfare of O’Connell Street. Police said the scene remains sealed off.
The Irish Times reported that the chief suspect has been detained and had sustained wounds believed to be self-inflicted. It said early indications suggested a man tried to attack a number of young people and that passers-by intervened.
The motive for the attack, which occurred close to a school, has not been established, the Irish Times added.

 Irish police are investigating whether the fatal stabbing of a Japanese man in a series of apparently random and unprovoked attacks in the northeastern town of Dundalk on Wednesday is related to terrorism.
Police arrested an 18-year-old Egyptian man on suspicion of the murder of the 24-year-old Japanese man who had been living in Ireland for the past year. Two other men were injured in the attacks that took place shortly before 0900 GMT, police said.
“A terror attack is a line of enquiry — it is certainly a line that we would look at,” chief superintendent Christy Mangan told a news conference, adding police would be aiming to check the suspect’s background and why he was in Ireland.