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Ansbach suicide bomber pledged allegiance to IS: German minister

BERLIN — Germany is boosting security around the country after four attacks in the last week that left many dead and wounded, including one that took place late Sunday at a music festival near Nuremberg which the authorities said yesterday was a terrorist attack.

BERLIN — Germany is boosting security around the country after four attacks in the last week that left many dead and wounded, including one that took place late Sunday at a music festival near Nuremberg which the authorities said yesterday was a terrorist attack.

A few hours later, the Islamic State (IS) group claimed responsibility, saying the attack was carried out by “one of the soldiers of the Islamic State”.

Bavarian Interior Minister Joachim Herrmann said yesterday that a video in Arabic found on the mobile phone of the Syrian who set off a bomb in the Bavarian town of Ansbach, near Nuremberg, showed that it was a terrorist attack.

“A provisional translation by an interpreter shows that he expressedly announces, in the name of Allah, and testifying his allegiance to (IS leader) Abu Bakr Baghdadi, a famous Islamist leader, an act of revenge against the Germans because they’re getting in the way of Islam,” he said at a news conference. “I think that after this video there’s no doubt that the attack was a terrorist attack with an Islamist background.” A 27-year-old man identified as a Syrian refugee blew himself up near the entrance to the music festival, injuring 15 others.

Mr Herrmann also said bomb-making materials were found at the man’s home after police discovered gasoline, chemicals and other material that could be used to make a bomb. He said officers discovered videos with “Salafist content” on storage devices were also seized from the man’s home.

German Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere said yesterday he has ordered increased security presence at airports, train stations and elsewhere in the wake of the attacks.

“What seems particularly important to me at the moment is an increased police presence in public spaces,” he told a news conference in Berlin. “I have therefore ordered that the federal police visibly increase their presence at airports and railways stations and that there are random checks, which are not visible but very effective, in border areas.” He also urged people not to panic, adding “naturally people ... are questioning whether they should change their routines. We should not ... we should continue to live our free lives”.

The bombing at the music festival followed a shooting spree at a shopping centre in Munich on Friday, in which an 18-year-old man shot dead nine people before killing himself. The attacker, identified as an Iranian-German who was born and raised in Germany, had no apparent connection with a terror organisation, said police.

In another assault on Sunday, a machete-wielding 21-year-old male, also identified as Syrian refugee, killed a pregnant woman in a town south of Stuttgart. Last Monday, an axe assault by an Afghan asylum seeker allegedly inspired by IS wounded two train passengers near Wuerzburg.

The attacks placed pressure on German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government to stem the violence.

Mr Stephan Mayer, a lawmaker in Ms Merkel’s Christian Democratic-led bloc, urged calm and warned against hasty judgments, particularly over the chancellor’s refugee policy, which triggered public anxiety after more than a million migrants made their way to Germany in 2015.

“There is a rising nervousness among our public,” Mr Mayer, who sits on Parliament’s internal affairs committee, told BBC Radio yesterday. “You have to differentiate — the events of Friday have nothing to do with our refugee policy. It is completely wrong to blame Angela Merkel and her refugee policy for this incident.”

Germany has largely avoided large-scale terrorist attacks on its soil, in contrast with the assaults that killed hundreds in Paris, Brussels and Nice over the last year. However, the incidents could revive pressure on Ms Merkel over her migration policy as she struggles to confront a range of crises buffeting Europe. “We will find what exactly was behind this,” Ms Merkel said on Saturday. “The state and its security forces will continue to do everything to protect the security and freedom of everybody in Germany.” AGENCIES

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