Bomber in Germany had ‘intensive chat’ online
was in contact with the Islamic State group or where the other person in the chat was, Herrmann said. He said investigators checking the assailant’s cellphone came across the “intensive chat” and that “the chat appears to end immediately before the attack.”
“Because of witness testimony on what happened and also the course of the chat, there are indeed questions about whether he intended to set off the bomb at that moment,” Herrmann said.
On Tuesday night, the online magazine of the Islamic State group said the attacker spent months planning the attack, once even hiding his homemade bomb in his room in a state-supported asylum shelter moments before a police raid.
The weekly Al-Nabaa magazine’s report added that Daleel had fought in Iraq and Syria with a branch of al-Qaida and the IS group before arriving in Germany as an asylum-seeker two years ago.
Herrmann said a roll of 50 euro notes was found on the attacker. It’s unclear where the money came from — but it is “unlikely that it could have been paid for solely from what an asylum-seeker in Germany gets in the way of pocket money.” He didn’t disclose the total value of the cash.
The Ansbach explosion was the last of four attacks in Germany in a week, two of which were claimed by IS. Islamic extremism wasn’t the motive in the other two — including the deadliest, Friday’s shooting in Munich in which nine people were killed.
The German government said President Barack Obama offered his sympathy to Chancellor Angela Merkel over the attacks in a phone call Wednesday. Both stressed their will to continue fighting international terrorism together and with determination, the government said.
On Wednesday night, German police said they raided a mosque believed to be a “hot spot” for Islamic
BERLIN — German authorities have arrested a 15-year-old boy who they suspect of having planned a rampage and also believe was in contact with a teenager who killed nine people in Munich last week.
The boy was arrested on Monday night and subsequently sent to a psychiatric facility, prosecutors and police in Ludwigsburg, near the southwestern city of Stuttgart, said Wednesday.
A witness had told police that he came across an online chat between the suspect and the Munich shooter, who killed himself following his July 22 attack. He then looked at a social media profile on which the boy had posted photos and drawings that pointed to a possible rampage.
There’s no suspicion that the 15-year-old had any knowledge of plans for the Munich attack, police spokesman Peter Widenhorn said. extremists and the interior ministry of Lower Saxony state said the apartments of eight leading members of the Islamic group were also searched.
The attacks have brought Merkel’s policy of welcoming refugees — more than 1 million last year — under renewed criticism.