Earlier today, German Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere made waves when he said that the recent surge in deadly attacks on German soil is “unrelated to Merkel’s refugee policy” and instead suggested that “psychiatric liability” is a possible motive behind the recent deeds.
German interior minister Thomas de Maiziere
Unfortunately, concurrent with his speech facts emerged which promptly refuted this hypothesis, when Bavarian Interior Minister Joachim Herrmann said that the Syrian refugee who blew himself up outside a music festival in Ansbach had pledged loyalty to the Daesh leader which confirmed an Islamist motive of the attack.
Fifteen people were injured in the Ansbach blast, four of them seriously, Ansbach Mayor Carda Seidel said. None of the injuries were life-threatening, she said.
“A video with a corresponding threat of an attack made by the assailant was found on his cellphone, in which he declares in Arabic…in the name of Allah allegiance to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, a known Islamist leader, and threatens vengeance against Germans because they stand in Islam’s way,” Herrmann told reporters.
The bomber, a 27-year-old Syrian man who was supposed to be deported, had bomb-making materials in his apartment, Herrmann said. Those materials included fuel, hydrochloric acid, alcohol-based cleaner, soldering irons, wires, and pebbles.
The past year’s influx of refugees and migrants to Germany has unsettled parts of the public, with some politicians claiming it was only a matter of time before Islamist terrorism also made its way in. They were right.
More than a million people seeking asylum have arrived in Germany since January 2015, among them more than 300,000 Syrians, according to government figures. Having sternly denied any linkes between refugees and terrorist, two weeks ago Angela Merkel for the first time admitted that some terrorists entered Europe among the wave of migrants that fled from Syria adding that the refugee flow was used in part to “smuggle terrorists” on to the continent.
Refugees waiting transportation to Germany
The late Sunday blast in Ansbach, a small town in Bavaria, marked the fourth high-profile act of violence within in a week in Germany and the third involving an asylum applicant, ramping up jitters over last year’s influx of migrants and refugees into the country. The suicide bombing was also the first such attack in Germany in recent memory. While Belgium and France have suffered from Islamist suicide bombings in the past year, Germany has avoided significant terrorist attacks.
This is how it happened: at 9:45 p.m., security personnel noticed a young man with a backpack walking back and forth outside the entrance to the concert attended by 2,500 people, police said in a statement Monday. He then walked to the outdoor seating area of the bar, where the explosion hit, they said. The alleged terrorist had sought to enter the concert but couldn’t get in, Herrmann said earlier Monday.
He was already known to police and had been treated twice after trying to take his own life, Mr. Herrmann said. He was also known because of a previous drug misdemeanor, a police spokeswoman said.
The man had come to Germany two years ago and applied for asylum. His application was rejected last year but he wasn’t deported to Syria because of the civil war, as is standard practice in Germany, Mr. Herrmann said.
A spokesman for the Interior Ministry said he was instead supposed to be deported to Bulgaria because the man had been registered there on his way to Germany. It wasn’t clear, the spokesman said, why the man hadn’t yet left the country.
The WSJ adds that on his phone, authorities found an Arabic-language video in which the bomber threatens an attack against Germans “in the name of Allah” and pledges allegiance to Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, Herrmann said.
“He then warns explicitly of an act of revenge against the Germans because they are obstructing Islam,” Mr. Herrmann said. “According to this video, it is beyond doubt that this attack was a terrorist attack with a perpetrator who had Islamist convictions.”
In trying to moderate already rising resentment against refugees, Herrmann said violent extremism “wasn’t typical for refugees in our country.” But, he added, “it is clear that with these attacks in quick succession, the worries and fears in our population will grow.”
It’s not just the locals who will be worried. Ansbach hosts a U.S. military installation, United States Army Garrison Ansbach, which is home to the 12th Combat Aviation Brigade and has 7,000 soldiers, civilians, family members and retirees living on and off base. The garrison implemented security measures on Monday that included two gate closures. A spokeswoman said no military personnel were among the injured in Sunday’s blast, and there were no indications that Americans were targeted.
“This scares the hell out of me,” said Gregory Garcia, a 31-year-old military veteran in Ansbach who is from Texas. “It does remind us of wartime”, Gregory added quoted by the WSJ.
One thing that will not help is that moments after the press conference determining that terrorism was indeed the cause, ISIS’ Amaq media outlet claimed that the Ansbach attack was carried out by an ISIS “soldier.”
Breaking: #ISIS‘ Amaq claims that #Ansbach #Germany attack carried out by #ISIS “soldier”, based on”insider source” pic.twitter.com/6lCQ6HRLjX
— Rita Katz (@Rita_Katz) July 25, 2016
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