On December 20, a black BMW crashed into a Christmas market in Magdeburg, killing at least two people and injuring dozens more. The suspected terrorist has been arrested. Police have not yet announced his motives, but journalists said the perpetrator probably had mental problems and was under the influence of drugs. While the attack is reminiscent of Islamist terrorist attacks of the past, the alleged perpetrator appears to be an ex-Muslim aligned with the German far-right.
The alleged perpetrator of the terrorist attack in Magdeburg, a psychiatrist from Saudi Arabia, Taleb al-Abdulmohsen, actively opposed the “Islamization of Europe” and supported the far-right Alternative for Germany party. This is evidenced by his notes on the social network X, which journalists discovered. Thus, despite the fact that the far right was quick to declare the attack “Islamist” and “the result of an uncontrolled immigration policy,” in reality, the main suspect himself turned out to be an aggressive opponent of Islam and consistently opposed to granting asylum to Syrians.
The weekly magazine Der Spiegel revealed that the 50-year-old suspect is a psychiatrist who practices in the town of Bernburg, 50 kilometers from Magdeburg. Taleb has lived in Germany since 2006. He came to Germany as a visiting doctor to qualify as a psychotherapist and sought asylum because he had received death threats in his home country for deviating from Islam. The man was granted political refugee status, became an atheist, and started a website for Arab women to “help them escape Islam and gain asylum in Europe.”
Al-Abdulmohsen actively supported far-right movements, retweeting billionaire Elon Musk, who sided with US Republicans and, in recent posts on X, has promoted the German far-right party Alternative for Germany (AfD).
In November, the perpetrator published the so-called “demands of the liberal Saudi opposition.” The first point in the publication was: “Germany must protect its borders from illegal immigration.” He claimed the open borders policy was Merkel’s plan to “Islamize” Europe.
A week before the attack, al-Abdulmohsen gave an interview to RAIR, an American far-right organization that opposes the Islamization of the United States. In the interview, he accused the German government of persecuting people from Saudi Arabia who had left Islam. The interview was headlined: “Saudi psychiatrist exposes Germany’s operation: Jihadists are welcomed to Islamize the West, while former Muslim refugees are harassed.”
