Ansbach Bombing in Germany Believed to Be Islamist Terror Attack

Syrian man had pledged allegiance to Islamic State leader, promised attacks against Germans, official says.

The suicide bomber who blew himself up outside a German concert, injuring 15, had declared allegiance to the leader of Islamic State, Bavarian Interior Minister Joachim Herrmann said.

The bomber, a 27-year-old Syrian man who was supposed to be deported, had bomb-making materials in his apartment, Mr. Herrmann said. Those materials included fuel, hydrochloric acid, alcohol-based cleaner, soldering irons, wires, and pebbles.

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, Mr. 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.”

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.

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 27-year-old had sought to enter the concert but couldn’t get in, Mr. 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.

Ansbach, a town of 40,000 people, hosts an open-air concert series in the city center called Ansbach Open. Sunday’s event, featuring three German artists, was scheduled to be the last of three nights of concerts held outside the Renaissance-style palace in the center of town.

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.”

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