Police said the Syrian man meant to target the open-air festival attended by 2,500 people but was turned away as he did not have a ticket, and detonated the device outside a nearby cafe.
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The attack has further rattled the German public following a week of violence in southern Germany that began July 18, when an immigrant teen, apparently inspired by IS, stabbed passengers on a train in Wurzburg in Bavaria.
The attack on Sunday, outside a music festival in Ansbach, a town of 40,000 people southwest of Nuremberg that has a US Army base, was the fourth act of violence by men of Middle Eastern or Asian origin against German civilians in a week. Three were in Bavaria and one in Baden-Wuerttemberg.
“I think he had some issues because, you know, he told lies so often without any reason, and I understand that he wants to be the center of attention, you know, he needed attention”, said Mr. Khodadad, a former residents of the hotel where the bomber had lived. The attacker, believed to be Afghan or Pakistani, was shot dead has he tried to flee the scene.
On Friday, a man in Munich went on a shooting spree in a busy shopping district, killing nine people before killing himself, authorities said. The attacker, a 27-year-old Syrian denied asylum in Germany, might also have mental disorder. Fifteen people were wounded.
Following a suicide bombing by an asylum seeker outside a music festival on Sunday, questions over Germany’s refugee policies have started to swirl.
However, police have ruled out a political motive for the killings in Munich. Authorities say Sonboly spent a year planning the mass shooting and had no links to the Islamic State.
JULY 24, REUTLINGEN ASyrian refugee killed a Polish woman with a kebab knife at a snack bar.
But Raffaello Pantucci from the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) says the first attacks may have influenced what was to follow. Both were being treated for online game addiction, among other things.
Did mental illness play a role? The unnamed man had repeatedly received psychiatric treatment, including for attempted suicide, Herrmann said. He also knew the attacker had a pistol.
He was already known to police, having been linked to a drug-related offence.
Is the refugee background relevant? All of Germany is on edge and wondering when and where the next attack will take place.
Germany’s federal criminal police have 410 leads on possible terrorists among refugees here, a local newspaper reported yesterday. He pledged himself to the Islamic State before committing the attack, according to a video recording found on his cell phone.
Should Germany expect more attacks?
Terrorist militia Islamic State on Monday claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing in southern Germany – the latest in a string of attacks that have shattered the country’s sense of calm and stoked tensions over accepting migrants.
“Most Muslims in Germany are of Turkish origin and while there are Turkish jihadists present, it is more of an Arab story and has deeper roots in France and Belgium”.
The terror group has described the attacker as “one of (their) soldiers”.
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Efforts to disrupt plots could also be hobbled because of German legislation preventing agencies from eavesdropping on citizens in the same way as their counterparts in the United Kingdom and USA routinely do, Mr Pantucci says.
