Over the weekend a man identified as Taleb al-Abdulmohsen, smashed his rented black BMW into a crowd at a Christmas market in eastern Germany. The Saudi-born psychiatrist injured 200 and the number of killed has risen to 5. According to German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, 40 of the injured are in severely critical condition. One of the 5 killed was a toddler.
Videos began circulating on social media which showed the vehicle plowing at high speed into the bustling market. Officials have not validated the footage as authentic. The BMW mowed over shoppers for roughly 400 yards towards the town hall. According to the U.K. Times, makeshift tents were set up to manage the vast numbers of the wounded.
Medical workers responded quickly and started treating victims amid a chaotic scene of panic and gore. According to Reiner Haseloff, leader of Saxony-Anhalt, the scene was “reminiscent of a war.” Initial tests indicate that the suspect was under the influence of drugs at the time of that attack. Local authorities assured the public that Al was acting alone and posed no further threat to the city.
The suspect moved to Germany in 2006 from Saudi Arabia. The 50-year-old medical doctor worked as a worked as a psychiatrist at a correctional facility in Bernburg and had recently rented the BMW used in the attack. In a 2019 interview, al-Abdulmohsen said he was the most aggressive critic of Islam in history.” According to the psychiatrist, he sought asylum in Germany to escape threats in his home nation.
Since the horrifying attack, authorities have poured over his social media. He claimed that he worked to help ex-Muslims, particularly women, flee Saudi Arabia after abandoning their faith. In a recent post, which purported to show a young Muslim woman purportedly being stoned to death “because she had an affair with a young man outside of marriage.”
Another post simply read: “Can you find one positive thing about Islam?” Before the attack, he uploaded a video where he accused the German Police was stealing his items and opening his mail. “I consider the Germans, as citizens, responsible for the persecution I am facing,” he stated in one video. In another, he claimed, “Currently in this country, the nation that is actively criminally chasing Islam critics is the German nation.”
Stephen White, a former PSNI assistant chief constable who currently works as a security consultant, told Sky News that the attack exhibits the “hallmarks of a lone wolf terrorist incident.” A Saudi source told Reuters the German authorities were notified about Al due to his extremist activities online. According to German sources, authorities had not classified him as an Islamist.
“Local people are saying it was a deliberate act, and therefore, one can only assume that it was some sort of murderous attempt by the driver.” White cautioned the public against overreaction, explaining, “If it is a terrorist act, and I use the word ‘if’ very deliberately, then it will have succeeded in the sense that there’ll be a reaction, perhaps an overreaction, by the state and by the authorities as we lead up to Christmas.”