A FAILED asylum-seeker from Syria blew himself up and wounded 12 people after being turned away from an open-air music festival in southern Germany, authorities said yesterday. It was the fourth attack to shake Germany in a week, three of which were carried out by recent immigrants.

    The 27-year-old set off explosives he was carrying in a backpack at a bar shortly after 10 p.m. Sunday, having been refused entry to the festival in the southern town of Ansbach because he didn’t have a ticket.

    The attacker is dead in the blast. Three of the 12 victims suffered serious injuries in the blast. The attacker’s pack contained sharp bits of metal.

    “My personal view is that I unfortunately think it’s very likely this really was an Islamist suicide attack,” Bavarian Interior Minister Joachim Herrmann told the German news agency dpa.

    Herrmann said 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.

    An Interior Ministry spokesman said Syrians can’t be deported directly to Syria because of the situation there, but the man was due to be deported to Bulgaria.

    The unnamed man had repeatedly received psychiatric treatment, including twice for attempted suicide, authorities said.

    Police said the attacker had also been known for drug possession.

    Authorities yesterday morning raided an asylum shelter in the suburbs of Ansbach.

    A team of 30 investigators were interviewing the man’s acquaintances and examining evidence collected from his home.

    Asked whether the bomber might have links to the Islamic State group, Herrmann said that couldn’t be ruled out, though there was no concrete evidence for this yet.

    The explosion came as Germany, and the southern state of Bavaria in particular, have been on edge.

    Earlier Sunday, a Syrian man killed a woman with a machete and wounded two others outside a bus station in the southwestern city of Reutlingen before being arrested. Police said there were no indications pointing to terrorism and the attacker and the woman worked together in the same restaurant. Polish authorities said she was a Polish citizen.

    Two days earlier, a man went on a deadly rampage at a Munich mall, killing nine people and leaving dozens wounded.

    An ax attack on a train near Wuerzburg on July 18 wounded five. A 17-year-old Afghan asylum-seeker was shot and killed by police as he fled the scene. The Islamic IS group claimed responsibility for the attack.

    These attacks came shortly after a Tunisian man driving a truck killed 84 people when he plowed through a festive crowd celebrating Bastille Day in Nice, along the famed French Riviera.

    Munich authorities said yesterday at a news conference that a 16-year-old Afghan friend of the Munich attacker may have known of the attack in advance.

    Investigators say the two teenagers met last year as in-patients at a psychiatric ward. Both were being treated for online game addiction, among other things

    (SD-Agencies)