Spotlight: Bloodshed puts Berlin under heavier pressure to tighten refugee policy

Germany has been shaken by four attacks in a week, three of them by asylum seekers while two of them claimed by the Islamic State (IS) group. Heightened social insecurity prompts criticism again over the German government's open-door refugee policies.

Calls for tougher control over refugees renewed after the Sunday explosion in Ansbach in the southern German state of Bavaria, killed the 27-year-old Syrian perpetrator himself and wounded 15 people.

The blast that took place at the entrance of an outdoor music festival was claimed by the IS again, following a July 18 axe attack by a 17-year-old Afghan refugee on a train near the southern city of Wurzburg, in which five people were injured and the attacker was shot dead by police.

Also on Sunday, hours before the Ansbach blast, a 21-year-old Syrian refugee killed a 45-year-old Polish woman with a machete in what the police said was a crime of passion in the southwestern city of Reutlingen.

A deadly shooting spree late Friday in Munich, with no link found with terrorism, killed nine innocents. The attacker, a German-born 18-year-old son of Iranian immigrants, shot himself dead.

The incidents damaged seriously the German government's efforts to de-link refugees with terrorism or social disorders after sexual assaults and robberies in Cologne during New Year celebrations raised doubts over its ability to cope with the increasing number of immigrants.

In 2015, immigrants to Germany surpassed 2 million, an increase of 700,000 over the previous year, showed official data. Registered asylum seekers were estimated to exceed 1 million.

Bavarian Premier Horst Seehofer has demanded a guaranteed disconnection of asylum seekers with the IS group. He is leader of the key partner in Chancellor Angela Merkel's ruling coalition.

Rainer Wendt, head of the German police union DPolG, on Monday morning urged stricter check on refugees to reduce potential security risks.

"Neither the identities of all people that have come to us, nor their mental and physical condition are clarified," he criticized.

"It is more important that we not only accommodate and feed the people, but also determine who is coming to our country and see exactly whether they pose potential risks," Wendt said.

Burkhard Lischka, spokesperson on interior affairs for the Social Democratic parliamentary group, said after the July 18 axe attack that an estimated 3,000 personnel are needed to beef up the security force, in order to manage the risks facing Germany.

The latest series of bloodshed are expected to feed the xenophobic sentiment and the arguments for regarding refugees as a source of increasing violence of terrorism in Germany.

The integration of immigrants into German society is another issue that draws public attention again. The axe-wielding attacker in the July 18 assault had lived in Germany for more than a year, but he had apparently received more influence from the IS group.

Many acts of terrorism in Western countries are carried out in revenge for the countries' intervention in regional hot spots. In this regard, German military involvement in international and regional affairs ahead is expected to make it more prone to terrorism. Endi