14 Wounded as Kurds and 'Radical Muslims' Clash in Germany

Street clashes between hundreds of Kurds and radical Muslims in Germany's northern port city of Hamburg left 14 people wounded overnight, police said Wednesday.

About 400 Kurds had rallied Tuesday against the jihadist group Islamic State (IS), whose fighters are besieging the Kurdish city of Kobane on the Syrian-Turkish border.

After the demonstrators gathered outside a Hamburg mosque, they were confronted by some 400 people described by police as mostly Salafist Muslims, and tensions escalated into violent clashes.

Police in riot gear used batons, pepper spray and water cannon to separate the groups of mostly young men who attacked each other using metal rods, sticks and machetes, as well as hurling rocks and bottles, local media reported.

Tensions between hundreds of Yazidi Kurds and mostly Chechen Muslim immigrants also escalated in the city of Celle in the northern state of Lower Saxony, local newspaper Cellesche Zeitung reported.

Riot police intervened against men armed with sticks, rocks and bottles, leaving several with slight injuries, the newspaper and public broadcaster NDR reported.