German police said today that an armed assailant had taken a teacher and four students hostage at a school in Waiblingen, near Stuttgart in southwestern Germany.
"We believe he has a pistol. We've received no demands as of yet," police spokesman Mr Uwe Bieler told N24 television, adding that they could not confirm if the hostage-taker was a student.
A local radio station quoted an eyewitness as saying the hostage-taker was a student armed with a weapon and said the area around the school had been cleared.
A gunman on a killing spree in a school in the east German city of Erfurt killed 16 students and teachers in April.
