BERLIN (AFP) - German prosecutors said on Friday (April 15) that a 15-year-old girl who stabbed a policeman in the neck in February was carrying out an operation for the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS).

The teenager identified as Safia S. attacked the officer in February during a routine check at Hanover train station in the north of the country, before being overpowered by another police officer.

She has since been in preventive custody while the police investigate the motives behind her action.

Following the probe, federal prosecutors said in a statement that the teenager had been remanded in custody for "attempted murder, aggravated assault and for her support for a foreign terrorist organisation".

They said the girl had "embraced the radical jihadist ideology of the foreign terrorist group Islamic State of Iraq and Syria" by November 2015 and was in contact with an ISIS fighter in Syria.

In January, she travelled to Istanbul where she was due to meet two ISIS middlemen who were meant to help her cross into Syria. But the plan was aborted when her mother brought her back to Germany.

Nevertheless, while in Istanbul, "she was convinced by ISIS members to carry out a martyrdom operation for the group in Germany".

"In light of this, the accused armed herself with a vegetable knife and a steak knife and went to the main train station," prosecutors said.

"During a security check, Safia S. unexpectedly drew her vegetable knife and stabbed the police officer in the back of his neck."

The officer underwent surgery after the attack and survived.