German official: Bomber had online chat to Mideast before blast

Bavaria’s top security official says the Syrian asylum-seeker who blew himself up outside a bar in southern Germany was in an online chat shortly before the explosion with a person in the Middle East.

Bavarian Interior Minister Joachim Herrmann does not specify which country the person was in, and says investigators do not know his or her identity, according to the German news agency dpa.

Attacker Mohammed Daleel died and 15 people were wounded when his bomb exploded outside a wine bar Sunday night after he was denied entry to a nearby open-air concert because he didn’t have a ticket. The Islamic State group claimed responsibility.

Herrmann says that whoever the assailant was chatting to knew he had explosives. He says that when Daleel said there was security staff near the festival, the unknown person said he should find a way in.

— AP