Berlin: German Chancellor Olaf Scholz vowed to step up deportations while visiting Solingen, where a deadly mass stabbing linked to Islamic State has emboldened the far-right opposition and stoked criticism of his government’s handling of migration.

“We will have to do everything we can to ensure that those who cannot and are not allowed to stay in Germany are repatriated and deported,” Scholz said in the western city, where he laid a flower at the scene of the crime.

“This was terrorism, terrorism against us all,” he added.

The attack, in which a 26-year-old suspected IS member from Syria is accused of killing three people, has fuelled political tensions over asylum and deportation rules before three state elections next month.

The suspect had had his asylum application rejected and was supposed to be deported last year to Bulgaria, where he first entered the European Union, but that failed because he disappeared for a time, according to German media reports.

The terror group claimed responsibility for the attack, which happened on Friday evening (Saturday AEST) during a festival celebrating Solingen’s 650-year history. Alongside the three killed, eight were injured, some seriously.

The far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, which campaigns for a crackdown on migration, is leading in the polls in Saxony and Thuringia, where state elections are set for Sunday, and in Brandenburg, which has its election on September 22.

The AfD seized on the attack in its election campaign, with Thuringia’s leading candidate for the party, Bjoern Hoecke, pitching to voters the choice of “Hoecke or Solingen”.