Details are emerging about the 27 year-old who blew himself up outside a wine bar at a music festival in Ansbach on Sunday.
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Germany has been deeply unsettled by two other violent attacks – evidently unrelated to the Islamic State – in recent days: On Friday, a mentally disturbed 18-year-old who was a dual German and Iranian citizen fatally shot nine people in Munich before killing himself; and earlier on Sunday, a 21-year-old Syrian refugee killed a woman with a machete in Reutlingen, in the southwestern state of Baden-Wuerttemberg.
“A video made by the assailant was found on his mobile phone in which he threatened an attack”, Mr Joachim Herrmann, Interior Minister of Bavarian state, told reporters yesterday.
The attacker announced in the video “in the name of Allah that he pledged allegiance to [IS chief] Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi… and announced an act of revenge against Germans because they were standing in the way of Islam”, Mr Hermann said.
In a single week, a total of four attacks in Germany – three by recent immigrants and two claimed by the Islamic State – has shaken a citizenry anxious about recurring massacres in France and has resurrected concerns about the country’s ability to deal with the more than 1 million immigrants allowed into the country previous year amid unrest in the Middle East.
Amaq reported that an “insider source” said the attacker “carried out the operation in response to calls to target countries of the coalition that fights Islamic State”.
A few hours later, the Islamic State (IS) group claimed responsibility, saying the attack was carried out by “one of the soldiers of the Islamic State”.
Police said Monday the teenager was arrested late Sunday and investigators were able to retrieve a deleted chat between him and the attacker on the messaging app WhatsApp. The attack in the southern city of Ansbach on Sunday night was the fourth in Germany in a week. It emerged that he had already registered in Bulgaria and later in Austria, so Germany rejected his request and ordered him to be deported to Bulgaria – most recently on July 13.
The music festival and surrounding area were then evacuated.
He added that Germany had increased the presence of federal police at airports and train stations, and the security authorities would do everything to prevent such violence from happening again.
Police say that from the chat it appears that the 16-year-old met with the attacker immediately before the attack at the scene of the rampage – a mall in Munich – before the attack.
Police were searching a local refugee home, but a spokesman declined to say whether it was where the assailant had lived. “We must do everything possible to prevent the spread of such violence in our country by people who came here to ask for asylum”. Authorities couldn’t confirm whether he planned to plant it to injure others or whether it was an intended suicide attack – though CNN is now referring to the deceased as a suicide bomber – but they did find metal items in the backpack that contained the explosive device, which could’ve caused more fatalities. The perpetrator left 15 bystanders injured and ended his own life, resulting in the only person killed from the explosion. “We will find what exactly was behind this”, Ms Merkel said on Saturday.
“This scares the hell out of me”, said Gregory Garcia, a 31-year-old military veteran in Ansbach who is from Texas”.
“Our sympathies go out to the injured of this perfidious and brutal bomb attack in Ansbach”, said Mr Seehofer. Officials said he had twice attempted suicide before the bombing.
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Roman Fertinger, the deputy police chief in nearby Nueremberg, said it was likely there would have been more casualties if the man had managed to enter the concert venue.
