A failed Syrian asylum seeker has blown himself up and injured 12 other people with a backpack bomb near a festival in Ansbach, Germany.
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Police have not identified the alleged bomber, but a security guard at the festival said a man with a backpack had been refused entry to the festival and was seen going to the bar where the explosion happened a few minutes later.
The dead man had been in treatment after twice before trying to kill himself, though Sunday evening’s explosion was more than just “a pure suicide attempt”, Herrmann told Reuters.
The 27-year-old had spent time in a psychiatric facility, but the authorities said an Islamist motive for the attack on Sunday night in the city of Ansbach appeared “likely”.
The incident last Monday was the first in a series of attacks that have shaken Germany over the past week.
A woman killed by a man with a machete in the southern German city of Reutlingen on Sunday was Polish, the Polish Foreign Ministry has confirmed.
Nine people died in a Munich shopping centre on Friday when they were targeted by a gunman, who later shot himself. Few others said a rucksack had exploded.
Police have also arrested a 16-year-old Afghan friend in connection with the attack.
An emergency response coordinator says paramedics working at a music festival in Ansbach were quick to react to the blast that killed the attacker and wounded 12 people in the Bavarian town late Sunday.
“It’s bad…that someone who came into our country to seek shelter has now committed such a heinous act and injured a large number of people who are at home here, some seriously”, Bavarian interior minister Joachim Herrmann told reporters at a hastily convened news conference early on Monday. He then sat down on a chair outside the nearby restaurant.
Two days earlier, a man went on a deadly rampage at a Munich mall, killing nine people and leaving dozens wounded. The 21-year-old Syrian asylum seeker came to Germany one year ago, according to a police statement, and he was known to police for property thefts and assault.
ISIS claimed responsibility for the July 18 axe attack in Wuerzbuerg. He planned to introduce measures at a meeting of Bavaria’s conservative government on Tuesday to strengthen police forces, in part by ensuring they have adequate equipment.
The recent attacks in Bavaria, a picturesque, mountainous haven for travelers, came shortly after a Tunisian man driving a truck killed 84 people when he plowed through a festive crowd celebrating Bastille Day in Nice, along the famed French Riviera.
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In January a programme was launched in the city to help refugees assimilate by teaching them the basics of law in their new host country.
