DRESDEN: Bomb attacks hit a mosque and a congress centre in the eastern German city of Dresden, police said on Tuesday, adding that they suspected a xenophobic and nationalist motive.

No-one was injured in the blasts late on Monday in a city which has become a hotspot for far-right protests amid Germany’s huge migrant influx.

“Although no-one has claimed the attack, we assume a xenophobic motive,” said Dresden police chief Horst Kretzschmar.

“We also suspect a connection with celebrations next weekend for the Day of German Unity” on Monday, October 3.

The home-made bombs went off and damaged the door of the mosque while the imam and his family were inside, forcing the partial evacuation of the hotel at the city’s international congress centre.

Dresden in Germany’s ex-communist east is the birthplace of the PEGIDA street movement, short for Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamisation of the Occident.

Its members have angrily protested against the influx of refugees and migrants that last year brought one million asylum seekers to Europe’s biggest economy.

Published in Dawn September 28th, 2016