Ansbach suicide bomber got instructions from Middle East on day of blast, German police say

The frantic last moments of Mohammad Daleel’s life last Sunday were spent in an online text chat with someone in the Middle East, asking for advice on how best to kill himself and create chaos.

Wearing a homemade backpack bomb, he had approached the gates of a pop music festival in Ansbach, Germany, but was surprised to see the entrance had security. When he sent a message asking what to do, the response told him to “find a loophole” or just confidently stride past the guards.

Instead, he turned away from the gates and toward the doors of a nearby wine bar. There, German media reports say, witnesses saw him trying to shrug the backpack off when it detonated. It was the second terror attack on German soil in a week, and one of four recent attempts at mass killing in Germany.

The bomb killed him instantly and wounded 15 others.

Police and Bavarian Interior Minister Joachim Herrmann said on Thursday they found out about the internet chat when they found Daleel’s phone. They both noted that the messages continued until just moments before his suicide.

The internet chat ended one question about Daleel’s bombing — whether anyone else was involved in a terrorist act that was claimed by the Islamic State.