The man who set off an explosive device near a music festival in the German city of Ansbach, injuring at least 12 and killing himself, was a Syrian who had been denied asylum, the Bavarian interior minister said.
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A man allegedly planning an attack in southern Germany has died, after detonating a device that killed himself and injured 10 others, according to local police.
The incident will add to growing public unease surrounding Chancellor Angela Merkel’s open-door refugee policy, under which more than a million migrants have entered Germany over the past year, many fleeing wars in Afghanistan, Syria and Iraq.
An 18-year-old German-Iranian shot dead nine people in Munich on July 22 and on July 18, a 17-year-old asylum-seeker from Pakistan wounded five people on a train using an ax and knife.
Police learned of the explosion just after 10 p.m., and they closed off a large area around the site, Ansbach police said. Jethro Tull frontman Ian Anderson was the scheduled performer.
Ansbach police could not immediately be reached for further comment. The group also claimed responsibility for the July 14 attack France, in which a Tunisian man drove a truck into Bastille Day holiday crowds in the French Riviera city of Nice, killing 84 people. Police said that he had planned the attack for a year. Germany’s post-war constitution, because of the excesses of the Nazi era, only allows the military to be deployed domestically in cases of national emergency.
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Back in January, Bavaria’s justice minister launched a state program in Ansbach meant to teach refugees the basics of law in their new host country, amid growing tensions and concerns in Germany about how it would integrate the estimated 1 million-plus migrants it registered crossing into the country a year ago.
