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Bloody car attack in Germany, suspect arrested
A car drove into a crowd at a Christmas market on Friday evening in the German city of Magdeburg, killing two people and injuring more than 60, in a suspected attack in which the suspect of Saudi origin was arrested. comes eight years after a similar act committed at a Christmas market in Berlin, while Germany, in the middle of an electoral campaign, is on alert against the risk of attacks. The alleged perpetrator is a 50-year-old doctor originally from Arabia Saudi, working in the region of Saxony-Anhalt, of which Magdeburg, 160 kilometers from Berlin, is the regional capital. This man “acted alone”, indicated the head of the regional government, Reiner Haseloff. The car drove into the crowd “for at least 400 meters across the Christmas market”, a spokesperson for the Magdeburg police told AFP. The assailant was at the wheel of a black SUV which crashed into road barriers. security, then zigzagging around the market grounds, according to testimonies from visitors on the local information site Volksstimme. While trying to turn around, he was stopped by police officers, according to the same source. Nadine, 32 years old, was with his friend Marco in the market during the attack. “He was hit and carried away, it was horrible, he didn't even scream,” she told the daily Bild. German head of state Frank-Walter Steinmeier spoke of a attack in a press release. “The joy of a peaceful Christmas to come was brutally interrupted,” he reacted. – “The worst” – According to a provisional report from the municipality, the tragedy left two dead and 68 injured. Among them are 15 people “seriously injured, the others having suffered injuries of severity described as “medium” or “light”. According to AFP journalists in Magdeburg, numerous ambulances and fire trucks are on the site in an incessant coming and going of emergency vehicles transporting injured people. The political class is in shock German Chancellor Olaf Scholz estimated that the current events “foreshadowed the worst”. Far-right officials quickly responded. reacted, in Germany and abroad, where the debate is lively on security and the reception of immigrants. “When will this madness end?”, wrote on the X network the co-president of AfD Alice Weidel, whose party is credited with second place in the legislative elections which will be held on February 23.”The target of the attack owes nothing to chance: radical Islam is waging a war on our Christian traditions, to our identities, to our civilization”, reacted in France the president of the National Rally Jordan Bardella. The French president and the heads of government of Italy Giorgia Meloni and Spain's Perdo Sanchez said they were “shocked” by the attack. The Christmas markets are an “ideologically targeted “suitable for people motivated by Islamism,” German intelligence services warned before the holiday season. – Previous from Berlin – Germany experienced a bloody truck-ramming attack on a Christmas market in December 2016, claimed by the Islamic State (IS) group, which left 12 dead in the center of Berlin and more than 60 injured. Several attacks or planned attacks with Islamist motivation, and involving foreign nationals, have shaken the country in recent years. recent months.At the end of August, a knife attack committed by a Syrian and claimed by ISIS left three people dead and several injured during a party in Solingen (west).In June, another stabbing attack, attributed to an Afghan during an anti-Islam rally in Mannheim, left one dead, a police officer who had intervened. At the beginning of September, German police shot dead a young Austrian known for his links with radical Islam as he prepared to carry out an attack against the Israeli consulate general in Munich. The same month, a 27-year-old Syrian suspected of links to radical Islam was arrested for having prepared an attack machete targeting German soldiers in a town in Bavaria. Since the unprecedented attack by the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas against Israel on October 7, 2023, which triggered the war in the Gaza Strip, German authorities have increased their vigilance against the Islamist threat and the resurgence of anti-Semitism, like many countries around the world.bur-smk-ylf/ib/ial/
