Germany: Blast injures 10, kills suspected bomber

Police in the southern German city of Ansbach today said a man was killed when an explosive device he was believed to be carrying went off near an open-air music festival, injuring 10 others.

Ansbach police said in a statement that just after 10 PM yesterday they were alerted to an explosion in the city center.“A man, according to our current knowledge the perpetrator, died” in the blast they said in the short statement. Further details weren’t immediately available and they did not pick up their telephone lines.  

The dpa news agency reported that the nearby open-air concert with some 2,500 in attendance was shut down as a precaution after the explosion.The city’s mayor, Carda Seidel, told reporters that an “explosive device” blew up in the city center but provided few other details.

The Bavarian Interior Ministry told dpa that it appeared to possibly be a bombing attack, saying that there was evidence that there was a “deliberate explosion.”

The website for a group of local newspapers, nordbayern.de, reported that none of the 10 injured were in life-threatening condition. Germany, and Bavaria in particular, are on edge after a deadly 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.