Interior Minister Nancy Faeser recently called on the population to be vigilant at Christmas markets, without mentioning any specific threats. Christmas markets are a “ideologically appropriate target for people motivated by Islamism“, the intelligence services had recently warned.
Germany experienced a bloody ram truck attack on a Christmas market in December 2016, claimed by the Islamic State (IS) group, which left 12 dead in the center of Berlin. Several Islamist-motivated attacks or planned attacks, involving foreign nationals, have shocked the country in recent months.
At the end of August, a knife attack committed by a Syrian and claimed by IS left three people dead and several injured during a party in Solingen (west). In June, another knife attack, attributed to an Afghan during an anti-Islam rally in Mannheim, left one dead, a police officer who had intervened. In September, a 27-year-old Syrian man suspected of links to radical Islam was arrested for planning a machete attack targeting German soldiers in a Bavarian town.
“News from Magdeburg portends the worst“, commented Chancellor Olaf Scholz on X. “My thoughts are with the victims and their loved ones. We stand with them and with the people of Magdeburg. I would like to thank the dedicated rescue teams in these hours of anguish.“
Belgium
Related News :