German official: Jihadist videos were found on the Ansbach bomber's phone that strongly suggest the bombing was a 'terrorist attack'

police-germany-ansbach-bomber
police-germany-ansbach-bomber

Michaela Rehle/Reuters

Bavaria's top security official says a video has been found on the phone of the man who bombed Ansbach, Germany on Sunday, showing him pledging allegiance to the leader of the Islamic State group.

The man, a 27-year-old Syrian who had been denied asylum in Germany, killed himself and injured twelve others when he set off a bomb outside a crowded music festival in Ansbach, a small town of 40,000 people southwest of Nuremberg.

Joachim Herrmann says that according to an initial translation of the Arabic-language video the 27-year-old man announced a "revenge" attack against Germany.

Herrmann told reporters Monday that the video strongly suggests the bombing was a "terrorist attack."

"A provisional translation by an interpreter shows that he expressly announces, in the name of Allah, and testifying his allegiance to Abu Bakr al-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, according to Reuters. "I think that after this video there's no doubt that the attack was a terrorist attack with an Islamist background."

The bombing was the fourth violent incident in Germany in a week, including the shooting of nine people in Munich on Friday.

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