Berlin– At least five people, including a nine-year-old child, were killed and more than 200 others were injured after a car rammed into a crowded Christmas market in the city of Magdeburg, the capital of the central German state of Saxony-Anhalt.
Governor Reiner Haseloff on Saturday said the preliminary death toll had risen from two to five and that many people were critically wounded.
Officials described the incident as an intentional attack and announced that the driver had been taken into custody at the scene. An investigation is under way.
Local media reports indicate the car involved was seen driving at high speeds before striking the crowd at about 7pm [18:00 GMT] on Friday.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz visited the scene on Saturday and offered his condolences to the families of the victims.
“What a terrible act it is to injure and kill so many people there with such brutality,” he said. “Nearly 40 are so seriously injured that we must be very worried about them.”
Suspect identified
The interior minister for Saxony-Anhalt, Tamara Zieschang, identified the suspect as a 50-year-old from Saudi Arabia who arrived in Germany in 2006. He was previously unknown to security services.
Haseloff said police believed the suspect acted alone. “As far as we know, there is no further danger to the city,” he told reporters.
Local media said the suspect was Taleb A., a psychiatry and psychotherapy specialist.
A spokesperson for a specialist rehabilitation clinic for criminals with addictions in Bernburg confirmed that the suspect had worked as a psychiatrist for them, but had not been at work since October due to sickness and holiday leave.
Saudi Arabia’s foreign ministry has condemned the attack. “The Kingdom affirms its position in rejecting violence and expresses its sympathy and sincere condolences to the families of the deceased and to the Federal Republic of Germany,” it said in a statement.
Local media said Taleb’s X account was filled with tweets and retweets focusing on anti-Islam themes and criticism of the religion while sharing congratulatory notes to Muslims who left the faith. He also described himself as a former Muslim.
He appeared in a number of media interviews in 2019, including with German newspaper FAZ and the BBC, in which he spoke of his work as an activist helping Saudi Arabians and ex-Muslims flee to Europe.
He was critical of German authorities, saying they had failed to do enough to combat the “Islamism of Europe”.
He has also voiced support for the far-right and anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany (AfD) party.
Prominent German terrorism expert Peter Neumann posted on X that he had yet to come across a suspect in an act of mass violence with that profile.
“After 25 years in this ‘business’ you think nothing could surprise you anymore. But a 50-year-old Saudi ex-Muslim who lives in East Germany, loves the AfD and wants to punish Germany for its tolerance towards Islamists — that really wasn’t on my radar,” Neumann said.
German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser told reporters: “At this point, we can only say for sure that the perpetrator was evidently Islamophobic – we can confirm that. Everything else is a matter for further investigation and we have to wait.”
Al Jazeera correspondent Dominic Kane, who was at the scene of the attack, said the Christmas market would have been especially crowded when the car struck.
“ It’s the last Friday before Christmas. It’s the tradition all over Germany that Christmas markets are places that people go to, especially on Friday night,” he said.
Kane added that media reports suggested Saudi authorities had warned their German counterparts about the suspect prior to the attack.
Police raided his home after the incident to check for explosives or other incriminating material, but did not find further evidence. The suspect’s reported use of a rental car could provide investigators an avenue to learn more about his actions in the lead-up to the attack.
“Obviously, there will be a record of when the car was picked up, where it was picked up and what documentation was used to get the car in the first place. These are all lines of inquiry,” Kane said.
German political upheaval
The attack came at a particularly sensitive time for German politics as Scholz lost a confidence vote in parliament earlier this week, triggering early federal elections scheduled for February 23.
Kane said the incident was likely to play into the hands of the anti-immigrant (AfD) party, which has gained ground in recent state elections, despite reports that the suspect was among its supporters.
AfD chancellor candidate Alice Weidel and co-leader Tino Chrupalla issued a statement on Saturday condemning the attack. “The terrible attack on the Christmas market in Magdeburg in the middle of the peaceful pre-Christmas period has shaken us,” they said.
The attack also comes eight years after a similar car ramming in the German capital Berlin on December 19, 2016.
In that case, a Tunisian suspect, 24-year-old Anis Amri, intentionally drove a truck into a Christmas market in a major public square, Breitscheidplatz.
Twelve people were killed in that attack and as many as 56 were wounded. Amri was eventually killed in a shootout in Milan, after fleeing to Italy.
Raphael Bossong, a senior associate at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs, speculated that the two incidents will likely be seen as related, though it is too early to speculate.
“ Unfortunately, this is a very sad anniversary, and I’m sure the perpetrator chose this thing for that purpose, to bring up this memory,” Bossong told Al Jazeera shortly after the news broke.
“We are entering an election period, and the German debate is already very polarised around these issues of migration,” Bossong explained. “I’m sure this will only add fuel to the fire.”
In particular, security arrangements – both at the market and in the country – are likely to come under scrutiny.
“All Christmas markets … are supposed to be cordoned off against traffic, in the sense that since no car and no lorry could drive into them,” Bossong told Al Jazeera. “Probably the authorities will have to do some explaining.”
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