USA TODAY International Edition
Suicide bomber in Germany pledged allegiance to Islamic State
Explosion injures 15 outside music festival
Germany is on edge following a string of attacks by refugees, including a 27- year- old Syrian man who pledged allegiance to the Islamic State before blowing himself up outside an open- air music festival in the southern part of the country.
The Islamic State claimed responsibility Monday for the bombing, which left 15 people wounded in Ansbach on Sunday evening.
The bombing was the fourth attack in Germany in a week. The worst incident was Friday’s mass shooting at a Munich shopping mall by a mentally disturbed German- Iranian teenager that left nine dead before the gunman killed himself.
The gunman, Ali David Sonboly, 18, who was born in Germany, was fascinated by mass shootings and had no apparent connection to the Islamic State.
“The people of Germany are afraid, because these events have happened on an unthinkable timeline,” said Rainer Wendt, chairman of the German police union. Wendt blamed the country’s “open door” policy toward refugees, which allowed more than a million asylum seekers to enter Germany last year, accord- ing to the German daily Die Welt.
Early Sunday, a 21- year- old Syrian refugee killed a pregnant woman with a machete in the town of Reutlingen. The first attack in this recent series happened when a 17- year- old Afghan refugee wielding an ax wounded five passengers on a train in Würzburg on July 18.
The German government cautioned the public Monday not to make generalizations about refugees and not to assume all the attacks are related to terrorism. Interior Minister Thomas de Maizière insisted the nation’s “welcome culture” has nothing to do with these attacks.
“In both the cases of Ansbach and Reutlingen, the attackers had gone through a full asylum application and security check,” de Maizière said at a news conference. “We can’t rule out a connection to the Islamic State, as well as we can’t rule out that this was a lone- wolf attack. We have to let the authorities do their work.”
The Ansbach bomber had two previous suicide attempts and had been held in a psychiatric facility after his German asylum application was denied. He was informed he would be deported to Bulgaria, de Maizière said. He said the Reutlingen attacker’s application had been successful.