Syrian who killed himself and injured 15 others at festival had video of pledge on his phone, says Bavarian interior minister

A video found on the phone of the Syrian asylum seeker who blew himself up in Ansbach in Germany shows him declaring his support for the leader of Islamic State, the Bavarian interior minster has said.

Joachim Herrmann said that according to an initial translation of the Arabic-language video, the man announced a “revenge” attack against Germany. “I think that after this video there’s no doubt that the attack was a terrorist attack with an Islamist background,” said Herrmann.



The attacker, 27, killed himself and injured 15 others when he detonated a rucksack of explosives outside a music festival in Ansbach on Sunday. He was due to be deported to Bulgaria after having his application for asylum turned down.

Herrmann said officers discovered videos with “Salafist content” on storage devices seized at the unnamed Syrian man’s home, along with gasoline, chemicals and other material that could be used to make a bomb.

The Isis-linked Amaq news agency said on Monday that the attacker “was a soldier of the Islamic State” who had acted “in response to calls to target nations in the coalition” fighting the terror group. It offered no evidence to support the claim.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Bavarian interior minister Joachim Herrmann. Photograph: Daniel Karmann/EPA

The attack came two days after a gunman killed nine people in the Bavarian city of Munich and a week after a man attacked train passengers with an axe in Würzburg, also in Bavaria.

The three incidents have plunged the south-east German state – and the country as a whole – into an acute state of nervousness and prompted probing questions about the extent to which the open-door policy of the chancellor, Angela Merkel, towards refugees last summer might be to blame.

In another incident on Sunday, a 21-year-old Syrian killed a pregnant Polish woman, 45, with a knife in Reutlingen, in the state of Baden-Württemberg. Police said there were no indications of terrorism and the attacker appeared to have known the woman he killed.

The German interior minister, Thomas de Maizière, said the country will boost its police presence at airports and train stations and carry out stop and search operations close to border areas, after the four attacks.

“What seems particularly important to me at the moment is an increased police presence in public spaces,” De Maizière told a news conference in Berlin.

“I have therefore ordered that the federal police visibly increase their presence at airports and railway stations and that there are random checks, which are not visible but very effective, in border areas.”

De Maizière defended Merkel’s refugee policy, pointing out that none of the suspects involved in the attacks in the past week were among the refugees who arrived last autumn after Merkel’s declaration that Germany’s doors were open to those in need.

He said the perpetrator of the Ansbach attack had requested asylum in 2014. He had been due to be deported to Bulgaria – where he had already been offered refugee status – but the order was suspended after medical certificates were submitted that showed he had mental health problems. De Maizière said that deportation proceedings recommenced on 13 July.

Police earlier said the attacker was known to them following his arrest for a mild drug offence, as well as two attempts at suicide to which they were called.

The Ansbach attack happened at about 10.10pm local time in the entrance of a wine bar at the Ansbach Open festival, when the attacker tried to enter the grounds but was turned back because he had no ticket. He immediately detonated the explosives in his rucksack.

“Had he managed to get into the festival, there would certainly have been more victims,” said Nuremberg’s deputy head of police, Roman Fertinger. The man’s rucksack contained the types of metal items used in wood work and available at DIY stores.

Four of the 15 injured people have serious injuries, Ansbach’s mayor, Carda Seidel, said on Monday. No one suffered any life-threatening injuries, she said, and most of the injuries came from splinters.

The festival was called off after the attack and 2,000 people travelled home.