Syrian Bomber Kills Himself, Injures 12 in Germany

Police in the southern German city of Ansbach say a man killed himself and injured 12 others Sunday night when he blew himself up after being turned away from an open-air music festival, the AP reports. He was a 27-year-old Syrian who had been denied asylum, Bavaria's top security official says. "We don't know if this man planned on suicide or if he had the intention of killing others," Bavarian interior minister Joachim Herrmann told reporters, adding that the man's request for asylum was rejected a year ago, but he was allowed to remain in Germany because of the strife in Syria. Three of the 12 victims suffered serious injuries, Herrmann says.

A spokesman for the prosecutor's office in Ansbach says the attacker's motive wasn't clear. "If there is an Islamist link or not is purely speculation at this point," he says. The three-day open-air concert was underway, with about 2,500 in attendance, when it was shut down as a precaution after the explosion. Jethro Tull frontman Ian Anderson was the scheduled performer. Germany—and Bavaria in particular—are on edge after a rampage at a Munich mall on Friday in which nine people were killed and an ax attack on a train near Wuerzburg last Monday in which five people were wounded. Earlier on Sunday in the neighboring state of Baden-Wurttemberg, a machete-wielding Syrian man killed a pregnant woman and injured two other people. (More Germany stories.)