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Merkel: Refugees Who Attack Us Mock Germany

Chancellor Angela Merkel has said refugees who carry out attacks in Germany mocked the country that took them in.

But she said there would be no reversal in the policy of accepting migrants.

Mrs Merkel pledged at a news conference that she would do everything she could to deal with the "barbaric acts", and bring to justice those responsible.

She said Germany owed it not just to the victims, relatives and other Germans, but also to the refugees.

Germany would do "everything humanly possible" to ensure security, she said, although there would have to be a "thorough analysis" before specific new measures were drawn up.

But Mrs Merkel also insisted Germany would stick to its "principles" and give shelter to those who deserved it.

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She argued the extremists wanted to reduce the country's readiness to take in refugees.

"The terrorists want to make us lose sight of what is important to us, break down our cohesion and sense of community as well as inhibiting our way of life, our openness and our willingness to take in people who are in need," she said.

"They see hatred and fear between cultures and they see hatred and fear between religions. We stand decisively against that."

Asylum seekers have carried out two recent attacks in Bavaria.

On Sunday, a 27-year-old Syrian man, who had been denied asylum in Germany, carried out a suicide bomb attack in Ansbach, which injured 15 people.

On 18 July, an asylum seeker from Afghanistan armed with an axe and a knife attacked passengers on a train in Wuerzburg.

Both of the attackers claimed allegiance to so-called Islamic State.

The most deadly atrocity was carried out in Munich on 22 July when nine people were shot and killed by a German-Iranian teenager.

Investigators have ruled out terrorist links and said the 18-year-old had received psychiatric treatment.

A separate attack in which a 21-year-old Syrian refugee killed a pregnant woman with a machete is being treated as a domestic incident.