A Syrian man killed himself and injured 12 people after detonating a bomb near an open air music festival in Ansbach, in Germany.
The 27-year-old is believed to have been refused asylum in the country in the last year, and had a history of attempting to take his own life.
Three of the 12 people are reported to have been seriously injured when the explosive device went off near a bar-restaurant in central Ansbach around 10pm last night (Sunday).
Some 2,500 people were then evacuated from the nearby Ansbach Open music event, which was on the last of a three-day festival. The attacker had tried to enter the festival, but couldn’t get in.
Witnesses of the attack have described seeing the man’s rucksack explode. Authorities have said it’s too early to say if the incident is connected to Islamic extremism.
One witness, Thomas Debinski, told Sky News what he saw:
“People were definitely panicking; the rumour we were hearing immediately was that there had been a gas explosion.
“But then people came past and said it was a rucksack that had exploded. Someone blew themselves up. After what just happened in Munich it’s very disturbing to think what can happen so close to you in such a small town.”
The Bavarian interior minister, Joachim Herrmann, said in a news conference:
“It’s terrible…that someone who came into our country to seek shelter has now committed such a heinous act and injured a large number of people who are at home here, some seriously.
“It’s a further, horrific attack that will increase the already growing security concerns of our citizens. We must do everything possible to prevent the spread of such violence in our country by people who came here to ask for asylum.”
This is the fourth attack on German soil in the past week alone. Earlier yesterday, a man – also of Syrian origin – killed a woman with a machete in Reutlingen, outside Stuttgart, in what’s believed to be a “crime of passion”.
Last Friday, a teenage gunman killed nine people in a mass shooting in Munich shopping centre, while last Monday, five people were wounded in an axe attack on a train near Wuerzburg.
