Migrant’s revenge on Germany
Syrian pledged allegance to IS and blew himself up when told he’d be deported
A SYRIAN migrant who pledged allegiance to Islamic State blew himself up in an attack on a German town after he was told he would be deported. Mohammad Daleel recorded a chilling video warning he wanted revenge on the country before taking a homemade bomb packed with nails to an open air music festival in Ansbach, 30 miles from Nuremberg.
The 27-year-old nicknamed Rambo by friends plotted to ‘maim and kill’ dozens of people at the event in the town square on Sunday evening.
But after he was turned away because he did not have a ticket, he detonated the explosives hidden in his back pack outside a busy bar wounding 15 people and killing himself.
Daleel had his application for asylum rejected in December 2014, but had managed to stay in the country after two apparent suicide attempts.
He launched his attack after officials visited him a fortnight ago to tell him that he would finally be kicked out within 30 days and sent to Bulgaria where he had previously filed an asylum claim. In a video found on a mobile phone at his home, Daleel announced he planned to take ‘revenge’ and ‘attack the Germans because they stand in the way of Islam’. He also pledged allegiance to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of the Islamic State.
During the search of the flat, which is in a former hotel converted into migrant accommodation, police found bomb-making materials including hydrochloric acid, a soldering iron, batteries and pebbles, the same materials used in the bomb. They also found a roll of 50 euro notes.
Investigators seized a laptop, two mobile phones and several sim cards. They said that he had six Facebook profiles, some with fake details that he used to spread Islamist hate.
Mubariz Mahmood, an asylum seeker from Pakistan who lived in the same building, told the Mail that Daleel never attended mosque and was nicknamed ‘Rambo because of his stocky build.
‘He was just like a normal guy, he wore jeans and T-shirts and had shoulder-length hair that he sometimes wore in a pony tail. He was not at all religious,’ he said.
The 28-year-old said Daleel had
‘One of our soldiers’
never found a job. The German government paid his 192 euros a month rent.
‘He said he had come to Germany because of the fighting in Syria. I do not understand how he could have done this.
‘He has created so many problems for so many people. If we move to a country and try to kill their children, how can we expect them to welcome us?’
Another resident, Alireza Khodadadi, said Daleel had ‘had some issues because he told lies so often without any reason, and I understand that he wants to be in the centre of attention, you know, he needed attention.’ Around 2,000 people were attending the festival on Sunday in the picture-postcard Bavarian town of 40,000 when Daleel planned to carry out his attack.
After being turned away from the event at around 9:45pm, he sat outside a nearby bar, Eugens, where he was seen reaching down to his bag at 10:10pm seconds before the explosion.
Witnesses said they heard a loud bang and saw people with injuries to their heads and bodies as they fled the scene in a panic. Four people were last night still receiving treatment in hospital.
A post-mortem examination found scars on his feet and legs that could be old war wounds.
Islamic State last night claimed responsibility for the attack, claiming he was ‘one of our soldiers’.
The group has called for its followers to commit ‘lone wolf’ atrocities across the continent.
It was the fourth attack to shake Germany in a week – with three carried out by recent migrants.
Last Monday, a 17-year-old migrant, who had falsely claimed to be from Syria, wounded five people with an axe in Wurzburg, after recording a video praising Islamic State.
Then on Thursday, a Germanborn 18-year-old shot dead nine people at a McDonald’s in Munich before turning the gun on himself. Investigators do not believe it was linked to Islamic State.
Hours before the bombing on Sunday, a 21-year-old Syrian man rampaged through the town of Reutlingen, killing a female colleague and injuring three others.