Taleb Al Abdulmohsen fled Saudi Arabia as an atheist. He lives in Bernburg in the district of Salzland and has a permanent residence permit
Taleb Al Abdulmohsen, arrested for the Christmas market attack in Magdeburg, Germany, was an anti-Islam activist. He fled Saudi Arabia as an atheist. He lives in Bernburg in the district of Salzland and has a permanent residence permit. He works as a doctor in a private facility. According to Der Spiegel, he is a fan of Elon Musk and the US conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, as well as the British right-wing activist Tommy Robinson. He claimed not to be right-wing, describing himself as a left-winger. In a tweet he wrote: “Anyone described by mainstream media as a radical or right-wing extremist is telling the truth.”
The investigation
A video shows the black SUV stopping and the man driving exiting the vehicle, raising his hands and lying on the ground, surrounded by officers pointing their weapons at him. «He went in a zigzag, to catch as many people as possible», is the version reported by «several witnesses» in the local newspaper Volksstimme. The most disturbing images are those taken by an eyewitness who, however, does not speak, only records the scene: people on the ground, desperate crying, rudimentary help. A witness told the newspaper that she saw the black BMW speeding in the area of the market where there were more children, namely the “Maerchen-bereich”, the area dedicated to fairy-tale characters. Meanwhile, immediately after the attack, false news began to circulate.
The Saudi doctor and the Syrian refugee
That is, “according to sources close to the Magdeburg police, the attacker is a Syrian refugee who since 2019 has no longer had the right to asylum in Germany, and should have been expelled.” This is a fake. Taleb Al Abdulmohsen instead worked in one of the hospitals which yesterday opened the intensive care unit to help the injured. The motive is still a mystery. The Islamist track seems to have been discarded. That remains that of psychological disorders. But “at the current state of the investigation it is not yet possible to classify what happened at the Christmas market”, the local police said on Friday evening. The still provisional toll speaks of two deaths, including a child, and more than 60 injured, fifteen seriously. «We saw the roof of the car, then it happened. Then everyone was lying on the ground, children, men, people injured with open fractures, it's unimaginable,” a witness told Welt TV.
Taleb's profile
Because the profile of the alleged attacker presents many contradictions. Resident in Germany since 2006, a doctor practicing in the town of Bernburg, near Magdeburg and with refugee status, he was not at all known for his sympathies towards the jihadist movement. On the contrary, explains the AFP today, his frequent stances on social networks paint the portrait of a man who feels persecuted, who has broken with Islam and on the contrary denounces the dangers of the Islamization of Germany. Some media even attribute links to the German far right. He was known in the Saudi immigrant community in Germany and helped asylum seekers, particularly women. “The reasons remain mysterious, an Islamist background seems to be excluded,” claims the weekly The mirror.
The far right
The German far right still seized the opportunity. “When will this madness end?” wrote AfD co-president Alice Weidel on the X network, whose party is believed to be in second place in the polls with almost 20% in the next elections in Germany. The party is just behind the CDU in the polls, which is also calling for a crackdown on the reception of refugees. And he bypassed Chancellor Olaf Scholz's Social Democrats. The latest attack on a crowd this 2024 dates back to August 23, when a man armed with a knife attacked the citizens of Solingen, who were celebrating the 650th anniversary of their city with a festival dedicated to diversity, in North Rhine-Westphalia. The toll was three dead and 8 injured. While on May 31 in Mannheim a 25-year-old Afghan attacked a rally of the far-right Pac Europa movement, injuring 6 people and killing an officer.
The attacks
The attacks always occurred a few weeks before important electoral events, the local elections in the east in the first case, and the European elections in the second. This time too we wonder whether the attack on the Magdeburg market will be able to increase the consensus of the populist parties of Alice Weidel and Sahra Wagenknecht.
