ISIS’ Amaq news agency has claimed responsibility for a Sunday evening suicide bombing outside of a music festival in Bavaria that killed the terrorist and injured 15.
Amaq released the claim in German, English and Arabic.
“Insider source confirms to Amaq Agency that the individual who carried out the martyrdom operation in Ansbach, Germany, was a soldier of the Islamic State who executed the operation in response to calls to target nations in the coalition fighting the Islamic State.”
Amaq has been the conduit for ISIS claims in attacks such as the Dhaka cafe siege and the Orlando nightclub attack. They did not claim responsibility for Friday’s attack on a Munich mall by a German of Iranian descent.
On Sunday, a 27-year-old Syrian who had sought asylum in Germany but was scheduled to be deported tried to get inside of a music festival in Ansbach, Germany.
He detonated his device, reportedly stuffed in a backpack, near the Eugens Weinstube bar after he was unable to get inside. Four of the 15 injured were in serious condition.
Also on Sunday, another Syrian seeking asylum attacked and killed a Polish woman in Reutlingen, injuring two others. BBC reported police have said it may have been a “crime of passion.”
ISIS has recently prominently featured Germans as they urge supporters to conduct attacks on Western targets.
A video released by the Islamic State last month focused largely on German ISIS fighter Abu Umar al-Almani, a Stuttgart-born telecommunications worker who went to join ISIS in 2014 and later took part in an execution video with an Austrian terrorist. In that video, Abu Umar urged Muslims in Germany to “attack the kuffar in their own homes, kill them wherever you find them.”
He was killed on March 16 in a suicide attack on Kurdish YPG units in Syria. The video featured conversations with Abu Umar in his native German as he readied for his suicide mission, interspersed with footage of Berlin. He was shown noshing on a baguette sandwich and spritzing on cologne with a smile at an Islamic State store.
When an animated re-enactment of the suicide attack was shown, the filmmakers show a Mercedes SUV heading for the Kurds — likely a nod to Germany instead of what expendable vehicle was really used in the bombing.
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