A 27-year-old Syrian denied asylum and entry to a German music festival in Ansbach took his own life and wounded a dozen people in a suicide bombing late Sunday.
The blast rocked an entrance to the Ansbach Open festival near a wine bar in the Bavarian city 90 miles northwest of Munich. The attacker seriously wounded three people at around 10 p.m., authorities said.
Police believe the attacker acted alone and detonated the device when he was unable to produce a ticket, according to Der Spiegel.
He was also identified as a refugee denied asylum in Germany in 2015. He had spent at least two years in Germany and was allowed to remain for an unspecified amount of time instead of returning to his war torn country.
Originally believed to be a gas explosion, the Ansbach mayor Carda Seidel said the blast was set off by a device, the Nordbayern reported.
“At present we assume it is not an accident,” a spokesman for the Bavarian interior minister told reporters.
The explosion canceled the remaining events on day three of the open-air festival as a precaution. Up to 2,500 visitors were evacuated from the concerts.
Germany is on edge after a deadly rampage at a Munich mall on Friday in which nine people were killed and an ax attack on a train near Wuerzburg last Monday in which five people were wounded.
Ansbach police could not be reached for comment.
One killed in explosion at Germany restaurant
One person killed and 10 injured in an explosion at a restaurant in city of Ansbach. Explosion appears to have been intentional.
One person was killed on Sunday night and 10 others were injured in an explosion at a restaurant in the German city of Ansbach, Sky News reports.
The blast occurred at Eugene’s Wine Bar and, while initial reports said it was caused by a gas leak, Bavaria’s interior ministry later clarified that the explosion was not an accident and appears to have been intentional.
The city’s mayor told the Nord Bayern newspaper that the blast was caused by an explosive device.
Bavarian Interior Minister Joachim Herrmann is en route to the area and an operations center has been set up in city hall, according to BNO News.
Germany has been on high alert following a series of incidents in recent days.
The latest such incident occurred earlier on Sunday in the city of Reutlingen in southern Germany, where a 21-year-old Syrian refugee used a machete to kill a woman and injure two others.
German police said the stabber was a “lone operator” and that he “had a dispute” with the woman. They added that as far as the preliminary investigation is concerned, the stabbing did not bear the hallmarks of a terror attack.
That incident followed the shooting in the Olympia shopping mall in Munich on Friday, in which 9 people were murdered, and 35 wounded.
The shooter in that attack has been identified as 18-year-old German-Iranian Ali Sonboly, who reportedly planned the attack for a year.
The series of incidents began last week, when a 17-year-old Afghan refugee attacked train passengers near the city of Wurzberg with an axe and a knife, seriously wounding three people.
The teen, who reportedly shouted “Allahu Akbar” during the attack, was shot dead by police forces as he tried to flee the scene.
ANSBACH, Germany — A man was killed when an explosive device he was believed to be carrying went off near an open-air music festival in the southern German city of Ansbach, police said Monday.
Authorities said in a statement that they were alerted to an explosion in the city’s center shortly after 10 p.m. on Sunday.
“A man, according to our current knowledge the perpetrator, died” in the blast they said in the short statement. Further details weren’t immediately available and they did not pick up their telephone lines.
The dpa news agency reported that the nearby open-air concert with some 2,500 in attendance was shut down as a precaution after the explosion.
Germany, and Bavaria in particular, have been on edge after a deadly rampage at a Munich mall on Friday in which nine people were killed, and an ax attack on a train near Wuerzburg last Monday in which five people were wounded. Both came shortly after a Tunisian man in a truck killed 84 people when he plowed through a festive crowd celebrating Bastille Day in Nice, on the French Riviera.
Bavarian public broadcaster Bayerische Rundfunk reported that about 200 police officers and 350 rescue personnel were brought in following the explosion in Ansbach.
The city’s mayor, Carda Seidel, told reporters that an “explosive device” blew up in the city center but provided few other details.
The Bavarian Interior Ministry told dpa that it appeared to possibly be a bombing attack, saying that there was evidence that there was a “deliberate explosion.”
Munich’s Sueddeutsche reported that the wounded suffered light injuries.