The man, reportedly a 21-year-old now in police custody, shot a soldier who was standing in front of a U.S. military bus. The gunman boarded the vehicle and killed its driver, Hesse state Interior Minister Boris Rhein told the Hessischer Rundfunk radio station. He injured two other Americans with shots to the chest and the head.

The suspect, who was born in the Kosovo but who lives in Frankfurt, fled into the airport, one of Europe's busiest air hubs, but was arrested there by federal police, Rhein said.

Spiegel Online reports that investigators believe that the man was a radical Islamist who singled out Americans as targets; the news Web site says the suspect had a large quantity of ammunition with him.

"The sole fact that he carries a weapon near an airport can't be a coincidence," Spiegel Online quotes an unnamed investigator as saying. "He could be a confused solitary shooter or a member of an organized group."

Kosovo's Interior Minister Bajram Rexhepi told CNN that the suspect is named Arid Uka, citing the U.S. Embassy in Pristina as his source. German police didn't deny or confirm this.

"It's either a terrorist act or he's crazy," Rexhepi told CNN. "There cannot be any other reason."

CNN reports that the soldiers are serving at Lakenheath Air Base in Britain, had just landed in Frankfurt and were about to be transferred to Ramstein Air Base, a major U.S. troops hub near Kaiserslautern about 70 miles to the south.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said she was shocked by the shooting and promised to push for a speedy investigation. "It's a terrible incident," she said.

U.S. President Barack Obama said he was "saddened and outraged" by the shooting, adding that "we will spare no effort in learning how this outrageous attack took place."

"This is a stark reminder of the extraordinary sacrifices that our men and women in uniform are making all around the world to keep us safe and the dangers that they face all around the globe," Obama said.

Frankfurt and nearby Ramstein Air Base have in the past been targets in attack plans by terrorists. German police in 2007 arrested three militants who had planned to attack U.S. targets in Germany -- among them Ramstein Air Base and several bars frequented by U.S. troops -- to kill hundreds, possibly thousands of American troops.

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