The suspect in an attack at a German Christmas Market is Taleb al-Abdulmohsen, a 50-year-old doctor from Saudi Arabia, who had expressed anti-Islam views and described himself as a Saudi dissident.
At least five people were killed and more than 200 wounded Friday night when a car plowed into a crowd in the central German city of Magdeburg, about 80 miles west of Berlin. A nine-year-old was among the dead.
Almost 40 of the survivors “are so seriously injured that we must be very worried about them,” German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said during a visit to the scene.
Abdulmohsen appears to have supported a far-right, anti-immigrant party, according to an X account that appeared to belong to him.
“The AfD and I are fighting the same enemy to protect Germany,” read one message posted in 2016. The account also shared posts from AfD politicians and other far-right figures, and alleged that Germany “wants to islamize Europe.”
Peter Neumann, a professor of security studies at King’s College London, expressed surprise at the suspect’s profile. “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,” he wrote on X.
President-elect Elon Musk has expressed support for the German AfD party, who is polling in second place, and wrote on X that German chancellor Scholz “should resign immediately,” and agreed with a post that wrote “only the AfD would have prevented the attack.”
- Abdulmohsen, who arrived in Germany in 2006, describes himself as a Saudi dissident, according to a German official. He lived and worked as psychiatric specialist at a clinic in Bernburg, 30 miles south of Magdeburg. The Saudi government said it had warned German authorities multiple times to be aware of him.
- One authority suggested investigators were searching the suspect’s home, believing he was under the influence of drugs.
- A possible motive was Abdulmohsen’s “dissatisfaction” with how Saudi refugees were treated in Germany.
- “We can only say with certainty that the perpetrator was obviously Islamophobic,” Interior Minister Nancy Faeser said.
