A Syrian man has killed himself and injured 12 others after detonating a backpack bomb near a music festival in the south German city of Ansbach.

The 27-year-old suspect detonated the explosive device outside the Eugens Weinstube bar in the centre of the town after he was denied entry to the Ansbach Open music festival at about 22:10 (20:10 GMT) on Sunday evening.

Witnesses say they thought the explosion was the result of a gas leak, before panic spread after they heard it was a bomb.

The music festival has been cancelled and all 2,500 music fans evacuated.

Police have cordoned off the city centre and are trying to establish the type of explosives used in the attack to determine how the man planned the attack.

Police say the man had been denied asylum in Germany and faced deportation to Bulgaria, but he had been given temporary leave to stay in Germany and provided with accommodation in Ansbach.

He is known to have attempted suicide on two previous occasions and had spent time in a psychiatric clinic.

It is unclear whether on this occasion, the man intended suicide or to impose mass casualties.

The bomb blast was the latest in a bloody week for Germany, which has seen an axe attack by a teenage Afghan asylum seeker aboard a train in Wuerzburg, a shooting rampage in Munich, and a knife attack by a Syrian asylum seeker in Reutlingen, Baden-Wuerttemberg.