A 24-year-old Afghan man who drove a car into a crowd at a demonstration in Germany’s Munich on Thursday has confessed that he deliberately did it, a prosecutor said.

A total of 39 people were wounded in the incident, according to police.

Two are in a critical condition, including a child, and a further eight are in a serious condition, police spokesman Guido Limmer told reporters.

German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier and several regional leaders visited the scene on Friday morning, all laying flowers.

“The brutality of this act has left us deeply disturbed and bewildered,” Steinmeier said in a statement, noting that it appeared the suspect had “wanted to kill and injure people indiscriminately”.

“The perpetrator is in custody and will be brought to justice in accordance with the law,” he said.

The suspect was said to have arrived in Germany in 2016 at the height of the mass migrant influx to Europe.

Former Afghan president Hamid Karzai condemned the attack and offered his condolences to the families of the victims.

Richard Gowan, the UN Director at the International Crisis Group, said on Friday that United States and China have been at odds over who should draft Afghanistan resolutions in the Security Council, adding that the debate has escalated since President Donald Trump took office.

In an article published on the website of an American organization called Just Security, Gowan wrote that the dispute has significant implications not only for how the UN engages with the Islamic Emirate in Kabul, but also for how Beijing positions itself as a leading power in the Security Council.

In UN parlance, penholders are the council members that “initiate and chair” the drafting of mandates, tabling the initial versions of texts for negotiations. The nation that “holds the pen” on a given file has significant leeway to set the terms for how the council approaches a peace operation or sanctions regime.

China, to date, has stood apart from the other permanent members. While it co-drafted some resolutions with the United States on North Korea in the 2010s, it has wielded the pen on no other country-specific issues on the council agenda.

This is despite the fact that Beijing has become more willing to assert itself in other ways in the council – such as casting its veto – in recent decades. 

However, last fall, China indicated that it wished to act as penholder on Afghanistan.

Beijing has a number of reasons to focus on Afghanistan and the U.N. Assistance Mission there (UNAMA). Beijing appears to see a continuing U.N. presence in Afghanistan as suiting its interests. Beijing is both wary about Afghanistan as a potential haven for terrorists, and intrigued by its mineral wealth, according to Gowan.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has expressed concern over the situation in Afghanistan, saying it poses a serious threat to neighboring countries.

During a meeting with Tajikistan’s Foreign Minister, Lavrov emphasized the need for cooperation to address security threats in the Central Asian region, particularly in Afghanistan.

He specifically mentioned Russia and Tajikistan as countries that could be affected by the instability in Afghanistan.

He added that cooperation within multilateral frameworks, such as the Moscow Format on Afghanistan, the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), is essential to counter these threats.

Meanwhile, Russia and Tajikistan have agreed to strengthen their cooperation in combating terrorism and drug trafficking.

However, the Islamic Emirate has repeatedly called these concerns unfounded and consistently emphasized that it will never allow Afghan soil to be used against other countries.

Earlier, the IEA stated that regional joint efforts are necessary to eradicate terrorism.