Bavarian Interior Minister Joachim Herrmann – a strong critic of Merkel’s welcome mat- told reporters at a news conference Monday that in his view the incident was “an Islamist suicide attack”.
Advertisement
“After that he announced in the name of Allah that he pledged allegiance to (IS chief) Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the well-known Islamist leader, and announced an act of revenge against Germans because they were standing in the way of Islam”.
On July 18, a 17-year-old Afghan asylum-seeker wounded five people with an ax before being killed by police near the Bavarian city of Wuerzburg in an attack that was also claimed by the Islamic State group. “But then people came past and said it was a rucksack that had exploded”.
Earlier on Sunday, a 21-year-old Syrian refugee was arrested after killing a pregnant woman and wounding two people with a machete in the southwestern city of Reutlingen, near Stuttgart.
German media reported that the doctor had been shot dead, but police in Germany said that he was actually critically ill after the shooting at the University Hospital in Steglitz, Berlin.
And last Monday, another teenager, wielding an axe and a knife, wounded four passengers on a regional train, before injuring a passer-by as he fled police.
A picture is starting to emerge of the attacker, a rejected asylum seeker known for petty criminal offenses who was looking for a job.
“This fact corresponds with ongoing investigations indicating that the terrorism threat [among refugees] is not larger or smaller than in the population at large”.
The first picture has emerged of the Syrian suicide bomber who injured 12 people in a packed wine bar attack in Ansbach, near Nuremberg last night.
Top security officials in Germany have called for tougher screening of asylum-seekers and also announced that more police officers will be hired following four attacks in the country – two of them claimed by the extremist Islamic State group.
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.
The assailant, who lived in Ansbach, was already known to police, in particular for an offence linked to drugs, Herrmann also told news agency DPA.
“The government is shocked by the events at the weekend”, deputy government spokeswoman Ulrike Demmer said.
The attacks left ten victims dead and dozens wounded and have rekindled concerns about Germany’s ability to cope with the estimated 1 million migrants registered entering the country previous year.
“We were not able to register and control all the migrants that crossed the German border”, Mayer added, stressing that he is not blaming Merkel.
The attack prompted a chorus of voices critical of German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s initial decision to welcome refugees and others past year.
“Until yesterday we had here the illusion that terrorism doesn’t reach little towns”.
One witness claimed, “The attacker was completely out of his mind”.
Advertisement
The violence followed an attack in the French Riviera by a Tunisian truck driver who plowed his vehicle into a Bastille Day crowd, killing 84 people in Nice.
