BERLIN – [Video below] – The Islamic State released overnight a video of the purported suicide bomber who struck the southern city of Ansbach issuing a pre-attack diatribe, prompting German authorities on Tuesday to heighten their investigation into the attacker’s links to the extremist group.
The day before, the Islamic State claimed responsibility for Sunday’s attack, in which a rejected Syrian asylum seeker – identified as 27-year old Mohammed Daleel – triggered a backpack bomb, killing himself and wounding 15 people.
In the subsequent video, which was released by a news agency tied to the group, Daleel vows that Germans “will never sleep well again.”
Frauke Kohler, a spokeswoman for the attorney general’s office in German city of Karlsruhe, acknowledged the video circulated by the Islamic State was the same one authorities found on the bomber’s mobile phone. She said authorities were investigating the extent of the bomber’s communication and links to the group, as well was whether he had accomplices in Germany who aided him in building the bomb.
“We’re wondering whether he had help building the device,” she said. “Just because you have knitting instructions doesn’t mean you can knit.”
In the video, the figure, whose face is covered by a black scarf, speaks in front of a white curtain, vowing to attack Ansbach in revenge over the “killing and displacing of Muslims.” He threatens Germans repeatedly, vowing that “next time, it won’t be [explosive] belts, but car bombs.”
The attack on Sunday was the fourth mass casualty assault on German soil in less than a week – including three involving migrants and two claimed by the Islamic State. The extremist group also claimed responsibility, and issued a video, of a 17-year-old ax-wielding Afghan asylum seeker who wounded five people in an attack on a Bavarian commuter train on July 18.
Authorities are still probing the background of Daleel, a Syrian who applied for asylum in Germany in 2014. He was issued deportation orders later that year after German authorities found out he had earlier applied, and received, refugee status in Bulgaria. He was due to be sent back to that country, but his deportation was delayed due to his mental health.
He is on record as twice having tried to commit suicide, and had been detained by police for drug possession and other minor offenses.
On Monday, authorities discovered bomb-making materials in the refugee shelter where he lived. Amid a growing sense of foreboding in Germany – which had until recently largely avoided the wave of terror that has struck its neighbors – officials also noted that Sunday’s bombing could have been worse. Daleel’s backpack was rigged with metal projectiles, and he had earlier tried to enter a music festival where 2,000 people were gathered, bu lacked a ticket and was turned away.
(c) 2016, The Washington Post ยท Anthony Faiola, Stephanie Kirchner
