Multiple deaths, dozens injured in Magdeburg market attack – DW – 12/21/2024

Hans-Jakob Schindler, who formerly was the Coordinator of the ISIL, al-Qaida and Taliban Monitoring Team for the United Nations Security Council, also highlighted the age of the alleged suspect as one of a number of unusual aspects of Friday evening’s attack, should it prove to be politically motivated.

Many of the other details, like his long period living in Germany, were known phenomena, he said.

“We have seen very consistently since 2014, where Germans born and raised in Germany have travelled to Syria to join ISIS,” he explained.

“So it’s obviously possible for people to be radicalized who have lived in Germany for a very long time and are then ready to attack.”

But he said it was less common for someone of more advanced years, or hailing from Saudi Arabia, to commit such crimes in recent years.

“We have mostly seen the age of perpetrators getting younger. Also the last time a large number of Saudi attackers were involved was the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the United States, when 18 of the perpetrators were Saudi Arabian,” he said.

Schindler also noted that terrorist groups were currently able to focus more on activities in places like Europe given that they were engaged in less combat closer to home.

“We have seen… the wider indication of these terror networks no longer being under sustained military pressure in Afghanistan, Africa or Middle East and having a much more broader capability of planning and conducting attacks in Europe.”

You can watch the full interview here.