The 27- year-old Syrian man behind Sunday night’s nail bomb attack in Bavaria warned in a farewell video of looming Islamic State car bomb attacks on the country.
German investigators say Mohammad Daleel, his face partially covered in a mobile phone video, explicitly renewed his oath of loyalty to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the Islamic State also known as Isis, leader.
That suggests the bomber was a member of the jihadist group before arriving in Germany two years ago.
In other videos attackers recorded a first oath of loyalty to the group, such as the perpetrator of last week's axe-attack in Würzburg.
In the Ansbach video, the bomber reportedly cited as motivation the West's bombing of civilians in the Arab world and German involvement in the anti-Isis coalition in northern Syria.
Germany is not directly involved in military operations in Syria, though Bundeswehr (the unified armed forces of Germany) reconnaissance planes provide satellite images to Nato allies.
In northern Iraq, German troops have trained and armed anti-Islamic State Kurdish Peshmerga soldiers.
Meanwhile police are pursuing the theory that the bomb left by Daleel exploded prematurely.
In the video found on his mobile phone, the bomber talks explicitly of his “marytr operation”, suggesting he intended to kill himself.
But eye-witness reports from the Bavarian town of Ansbach suggest Daleel put down the explosive-filled rucksack just before the explosion rocked an open-air music festival.
That lead police to suspect he may have intended to detonate the explosive remotely, using the mobile phone security staff saw him using just before the attack.
The bomber was the only fatality in the Sunday evening attack that left 15 others injured.
The likelihood that Daleel was sent by Islamic State to Europe has sparked alarm in Germany about refugee vetting procedures, based largely on testimony of those seeking asylum.
In August 2014, Daleel told asylum officials he was a Sunni Muslim from Aleppo who studied law for one semester and worked in his father’s soap factory.
He said a missile destroyed the family home, killing his wife and children and leaving him seriously injured.
With his parents in prison, he escaped to Turkey but was arrested several times, he added, allegedly for posting videos of anti-government demonstrations.
“I am fearful of a return to Syria because I could become a murderer,” he told German officials. “I don’t want to carry weapons against people.”
He paid traffickers to bring him to Bulgaria in September 2013 but when he received no medical treatment for injuries, he moved on to Vienna in April 2014. There authorities seized his documents and he filed his second asylum application before heading to Munich in July 2014.
Though his German asylum application was denied the subsequent deportation order was not carried out because of a knee injury that had not been treated in Bulgaria.
After two suicide attempts, the deportation order was set aside in February of last year.
“He cut himself superficially on his arms,” said Roman Fertinger, deputy police chief in Nuremberg.
On July 13th, Daleel was informed he had 30 days to leave Germany and reportedly told other residents of his asylum home that he would do something about that.
