Cologne nail bomb 'not terrorism'

Nails and shattered glass exploded into the street

German police say they have no evidence that the Cologne bomb that injured 22 people was a terrorist attack.

Investigators also ruled out racism, saying they had "absolutely nothing on the motive".

The bomb exploded in a largely Turkish district of the city, showering the street with nails, glass and debris.

Police spokesman Dieter Klinger said "the means used and the way it was carried out" clearly showed the attack was meant to take lives.

"So far, we have no clear indication about the objective of this attack," he said.

"It is a relief that no one was killed."

German Interior Minister Otto Schily also said it was too early to determine a motive.

"The findings made so far by our intelligence authorities point not to a terrorist background, but to a criminal milieu," he said.

The blast hit the building - in a busy shopping street in the mainly Turkish district of Muelheim - at about 1600 local time (1400 GMT) on Wednesday.

Past attacks

Several shops and cars in the street were damaged. Thousands of nails were found at the scene.

The shops closest to the blast were a pizzeria and hairdressers' salon.

The 22 people who were wounded, including a pregnant woman, were aged between 17 and 68. Four people were badly hurt.

Cologne, Germany's fourth-largest city, has substantial Turkish and Kurdish communities.

There have been attacks like this in the past in Germany.

Four years ago a shrapnel bomb injured nine people at the railway station in the nearby city of Duesseldorf - the culprit was never tracked down.

However, Germany has not suffered from a major campaign of political violence since the heyday of the Red Army Faction in the 1970s.