Germany’s Merkel stands by refugee policy after attacks

The bloodiest incident, a shooting spree in Munich on July 22 that killed 10 people including the shooter, was unrelated to worldwide terrorism. In the most recent attack, …

Police secure the area after an explosion in Ansbach, Germany, July 25, 2016. In the most recent attack, a 27…

Merkel also said that “besides organised terrorist attacks, there will be new threats from perpetrators not known to security personnel”. Between 25,000 and 30,000 Syrians have sought asylum in Germany each month.

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Asked if she was exhausted, Ms Merkel told the news conference “sometimes I do like to go to bed in the evening”, before adding: “I am not without too much to do”.

On Thursday, Merkel said her 2015 policy of accepting hundreds of thousands of migrants and refugees still stands. The government “will do everything humanly possible to ensure security in our free, democratic state of law, ” she said.

“We’ll manage it”, the German chancellor said, repeating a phrase – “wir shaffen das” – she famously used last August about her commitment to taking in refugees.

“It makes a mockery of the aid workers who have offered help and it makes a mockery of other refugees who truly are seeking safety from violence and war”, Merkel told reporters in Berlin on Thursday. A disgruntled teenager shot and killed nine people in Munich.

Three of the four attacks were carried out by asylum seekers.

“A decision has to be taken on this each time and perhaps some members of the public have a different view to the way I chose to do things”, she added.

The German attacks came with two state elections looming in September, in Berlin and in Merkel’s fiefdom of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, an economically depressed state on the Baltic coast.

Herrmann said that whoever the assailant was chatting to knew he had explosives.

He had been under psychiatric treatment and investigators say he was obsessed with mass shooting, including Norwegian rightwing fanatic Anders Behring Breivik’s 2011 massacre.

She said Germany would stick to its principles and continue to grant asylum protection to those fleeing wars. The Syrian, who had no previous police record, was released following the search. Authorities have said he was a refugee, but there has been confusion over whether he was from Afghanistan or Pakistan.

Merkel’s methodical response is in stark contrast to that of French President Francois Hollande, who has rushed to the scene of recent attacks.

Both of the attackers claimed allegiance to so-called Islamic State. “And that requires a big military commitment to protect refugees from attacks”, Obama said.

He also called for tougher background checks on asylum-seekers and new strategies to deport criminal asylum-seekers more easily. That attacker was not an asylum seeker, however.