(Xinhua/Qian Yi) The man believed to carry an explosive device was killed while 12 others were injured, three of them seriously, in the blast that took place at the entrance area of a local open-air music festival where about 2,500 people gathered.
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Police have found a video on the 27-year-old man’s cellphone in which he refers to ISIS, Bavaria’s interior minister Joachim Herrmann said Monday, according to Deutsche Welle. But Germany has not joined countries like Britain, France, the United States and Russian Federation in conducting airstrikes.
But the fact that recent migrants were involved in three of the four prominent attacks over the last week was certain to reignite debate about immigration – Bavaria has been a point of entry and a destination for numerous more than 1 million migrants who have sought refuge in Germany since the start of a year ago. This attack in Ansbach is only one of a string of attacks across Germany this week, some of which seem to be terrorist related. Police have named the bomber only as Mohammad D.
Islamic State claimed responsibility for the Wuerzburg attack as well as the July 14 rampage in the French Riviera city of Nice in which a Tunisian man drove a truck into Bastille Day crowds, killing 84 people.
22 July: A German teenager of Iranian extraction goes on a shooting rampage in the Bavarian state capital, Munich, killing nine people, majority migrants, before shooting himself.
Although the wave of migrants has sharply diminished this year due to a deal with Turkey to prevent them from entering Europe, more than 1 million asylum seekers arrived in Germany last year, many with minimal security checks. Later, a Guardian report was filed saying that “the Isis-affiliated Amaq news agency has claimed the Ansbach attack for the terror group”.
German Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere has ordered beefed up security at transportation hubs and elsewhere. The unnamed man had repeatedly received psychiatric treatment, including for attempted suicide, Herrmann said.
Germans are reeling from a spate of violent attacks that have shaken a country already anxious about its open-door refugee policy and fearful that Islamist terrorist attacks like those in neighboring France could take place here, too. Four people were in serious condition.
Tobias Plate said the man was told on July 13 that he would be deported to Bulgaria, where he submitted his first asylum request. It was the fourth attack on members of the public in Germany in a week.
Plate told reporters that the first deportation notice was issued on December 22, 2014, but it wasn’t clear why he hadn’t been deported then.
Merkel, who sought to reassure citizens on Saturday after the Munich attack, is closely following the developments from the countryside outside of Berlin, government spokeswoman Ulrike Demmer said.
“It is more important that we not only accommodate and feed the people, but also determine who is coming to our country and see exactly whether they pose potential risks”, Wendt said.
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And last Monday, a 17-year-old refugee from Pakistan (originally thought to have been Afghan) was shot dead by police after injuring five people with an ax on a commuter train in southern Germany. The Syrian refugee who killed himself in Ansbach had been notified of his impending deportation to Bulgaria, but “I can’t at this point tell you why the deportation has not been carried out”, Mr. Plate said.
