 "Germany Christmas market attack: Inside the dark social media world of suspect Taleb al-Abdulmohsen")
Germany’s festive spirit has turned sombre with many in mourning after a car plowed into a Christmas market in Magdeburg, killing five people and injuring more than 200 on Friday (December 20).
Officials in Germany are now trying to piece together the possible motivation for Saudi suspect Taleb al-Abdulmohsen , a 50-year-old psychiatrist, to ram his car into the crowds in an attack that stunned the people and raised questions about security in the country.
Germany’s Interior Minister Nancy Faeser said on Sunday (December 22) that “no stone will be left unturned” in shedding light on what information had been available to security services ahead of last Friday’s bloody attack in the eastern city of Magdeburg.
She further stressed that the attacker did “not fit any previous pattern” because “he acted like an Islamist terrorist although ideologically he was clearly an enemy of Islam”.
Friday’s Christmas carnage
Last Friday, a car, identified to be a BMW, barrelled through a Christmas market crowd in the eastern German city of Magdeburg. NTV television showed multiple ambulances and fire engines at the chaotic site with injured people being rushed off to hospitals and others being treated as they lay on the ground.
Cries and screams could be heard as police, medics and the fire service deployed to the litter-strewn market decorated with Christmas trees and festive lights.
The local Volkstimme newspaper said reports from the scene indicated the attacker “drove in a zig-zag motion across the market — clearly in an attempt to hit as many people as possible”.
At the end of the attack, five people had died, including four women and a nine-year-old child, and injured many others.
One of the survivors of the attack was quoted by Welt TV saying, “Everyone was lying on the ground — children, men, injured, it’s unimaginable.”
“I thought I was just going to a Christmas market and then something like this happens. The world is sick.”
Suspect’s trail of hate on social media
Following the attack, German officials arrested a 50-year-old Saudi Arabian man, who lives in the eastern state of Saxony-Anhalt. Media outlets soon identified him as Taleb Al Abdulmohsen, a doctor of psychiatry.
According to some reports, Taleb arrived in Germany as a Saudi Arabian refugee in 2006. Posts on his social media accounts show that he supported anti-Islam and far-right parties, including Alternative for Germany.
On X, Taleb has over 47,000 followers and he routinely posted or re-posted on a daily basis mostly on anti-Islam themes. He often criticised the religion and congratulated Muslims who left the faith. A BBC interview of 2022 reveals that Taleb had set up a website called “We Are Saudis” (wearesaudis.net) which he says he used to help Saudi activists and ex-Muslims escape Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries. He told the BBC he was often approached by younger Saudi women trying to escape their families.
His social media activity also reveals that while he was initially appreciative of Germany, in recent years he appeared to be more discontent with the country’s immigration policies. He also accused Germany of promoting the Islamisation of the country.
Previously, he posted online to his followers, “German terrorism will be brought to justice. It’s very likely that I will die this year in order to bring justice.”
In August, he once again posted, “I assure you that if Germany wants a war, we will fight it. If Germany wants to kill us, we will slaughter them, die, or go to prison with pride.”
He also wrote, “Is there a path to justice in Germany without blowing up a German embassy or randomly slaughtering German citizens? … If anyone knows it, please let me know.”
He also spewed a lot of hate towards former German Chancellor Angela Merkel, accusing her of allowing too many Muslims into the country. In early December, he posted, “Merkel must spend the rest of her life in prison as punishment for her criminal secret project to Islamise Europe. But if the death penalty is reinstated, she deserves to be executed.”
Apart from his posts, Taleb as early as 2013 was fined by a court in the city of Rostock for “disturbing the public peace by threatening to commit crimes”. He was also investigated this year in Berlin for the “misuse of emergency calls” after arguing heatedly with officers at a police station, local media reported.
Mina Ahadi, the chair of an association of former Muslims in Germany, told The Guardian that Taleb was “no stranger to us, because he has been terrorising us for years”. She labelled him “a psychopath who adheres to ultra-right conspiracy ideologies”.
Warnings about Taleb
After the car-ramming incident, it also emerged that Saudi Arabia had warned Germany about Taleb and his extremist views. According to a report by Der Spiegel, the Saudi secret service had warned Germany a year ago about a tweet in which Taleb threatened Germany would pay a “price” for its treatment of Saudi refugees.
CNN further reports that Saudi Arabia considered Taleb a fugitive and even requested his extradition from Germany between 2007 and 2008.
However, a risk assessment concluded that Taleb was of “no specific danger”, reported the Welt newspaper.
Questions swirling over car attack
Many in Germany are baffled as to how Taleb carried out this attack on Friday, with some accusing officials of ignoring warning signs. In fact, as leaders and politicians arrived at the market on Saturday , they were confronted with boos and heckles and shouts of “hau ab”, an extremely aggressive form of “get lost”, reported the BBC.
Many asked why a car could pass through the barriers that are now set up around open-markets following the 2016 incident in which a man drove a lorry into a market crowd, killing 12 people.
According to city official Ronni Krug, the emergency responders needed an evacuation route in case of a “conventional” emergency, and all the relevant agencies approved the plan. “A safety and security concept must, on the one hand, protect those visiting an event as much as possible, but also needs to ensure, at the same time, if something does happen, they are able to leave the site safely and rapidly,” he said.
Meanwhile, the incident has also provided fodder for the opposition parties to attack German Chancellor Olaf Scholz. Conservative lawmaker Alexander Throm charged that “many citizens feel… that the Scholz government has completely failed in terms of internal security”.
The far-right AfD has even called for a special session of parliament.
However, Scholz condemning the “terrible, insane” attack, made a call for national unity amid high political tensions as Germany heads towards elections on February 23.
With inputs from agencies
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