On Friday, a man in Munich went on a shooting spree in a busy shopping district, killing nine people before killing himself, authorities said.
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Armin Schuster, homeland security expert in the Bundestag and a member of the Christian Democrat party (CDU), warned that the country must carry out swifter deportations of rejected asylum-seekers.
In Baden-Wuerttemberg, where a woman was killed by a Syrian attacker Sunday, Interior Minister Thomas Strobl also demanded a tougher stance toward asylum-seekers.
The Syrian who blew himself up in southern Germany, wounding 15 people, had pledged allegiance to IS on a video found on his mobile phone, the Bavarian Interior Minister said on Monday.
Horst Seehofer, conservative premier of Bavaria, which saw three of the attacks, called into question the principle that asylum seekers should never be sent back to war zones.
Merkel’s aides were quick to point out that three of the four assailants arrived in Germany before the influx that brought in more than 1-million refugees and migrants in 2015.
Police said the chat appeared to show that the 16-year-old met with the attacker immediately before the shooting started, and knew that he had a pistol. The minister said that an investigation into the content of the videos is still ongoing, but based on the evidence so far, the attack is likely an act of terror inspired by extremist Islamic beliefs. State police said on Saturday the shooter was neither a refugee nor known to have terror links, but had been receiving psychiatric treatment.
ISIS’ Amaq news agency said yesterday that the bomber was one of its soldiers. “There was also this welcome culture, which stopped us clearly seeing that some people have come here who are up to no good, or who are so psychologically unstable that they pose a considerable threat”. The man said the attack would be committed in the name of Allah as retaliation for the killing of Muslims.
The Sunday incidents occurred within a week after an axe attack by a 17-year-old Afghan refugee on a train left five people injured near Wurzburg in southern Germany.
The incident will fuel growing public unease about German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s open-door refugee policy.
The IS-linked Aamaq news agency said the attacker acted in response to the extremist group’s call to target countries of the US -led coalition fighting it in Iraq and Syria.
Police said the Syrian blew himself up in the outside seating area of a wine bar near the open-air concert.
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 a year ago amid unrest in the Middle East. But that did not change the public’s perception that Merkel and her government had made a serious mistake by allowing in so many refugees; a Focus newsmagazine poll conducted weeks after the attack found that almost 40% of voters thought Merkel should resign because of it.
“Most of the terrorists who carried out attacks in recent months in Europe were not refugees”, she told reporters.
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Police said the suicide bomber meant to target the open-air festival, but was turned away as he did not have a ticket, and detonated the device outside a nearby cafe. The spokeswoman talked on condition of anonymity in line with department policy.
