German officials try to tamp down fear of refugees after Ansbach attack
German officials disputed one another Monday over the import of a suicide attack near a rock music festival, with the interior minister of Bavaria calling it an “Islamist suicide attack,” while federal officials tried to lessen the public’s fear of refugees.
Officials said the 27-year-old Syrian refugee who blew himself up at Anbsbach had tried to kill himself twice before in Germany in the past year, and that he had been placed under psychiatric care.
The third time, at 10:10 p.m. Sunday, he succeeded, detonating a backpack bomb as he was trying to get into a music festival in Ansbach, a medieval town in the southern German state of Bavaria. He killed himself, and injured 12, three of whom were described as having “severe” injuries.
The death toll could have been worse. The 27-year-old had been in line to enter the “Ansbach Open 2016” rock festival, but had been denied entry because he...