Prosecutors see an Islamic extremist motive in the Munich car-ramming attack
MUNICH — The suspect in the car-ramming attack in Munich that left more than 30 people injured appears to have had an Islamic extremist motive, but there's no evidence that he was involved with any radical network, authorities said Friday.
The 24-year-old Afghan, who arrived in Germany as an asylum-seeker in 2016 and lived in Munich, was arrested after driving his Mini Cooper into the back of a labor union demonstration in the Bavarian city on Thursday. Police officers pulled him out of the car after firing a shot at the vehicle, which didn't hit him, and arrested him.
It was the fifth in a series of attacks involving immigrants over the past nine months that have pushed migration to the forefront of the campaign for Germany's Feb. 23 election.
Prosecutor Gabriele Tilmann said that the suspect said 'Allahu Akbar,' or 'God is great,' to police and then prayed after his arrest — which prompted a department that investigates extremism and terror to take on the case immediately.
In questioning, he admitted deliberately driving into the demonstration and 'gave an explanation that I would summarize as religious motivation,' Tilmann said.
She didn't give details, but added: 'According to all we know at the moment, I would venture to speak of an Islamist motivation.' However, there were no indications the suspect was in any Islamic extremist organization, she added.
He posted content with religious references — such as 'Allah, protect us always' — on social media, where he described himself as a bodybuilder and fitness model, Tilmann said.
The deputy head of Bavaria's state criminal police office, Guido Limmer, said investigators found a chat, apparently with relatives, in which the suspect wrote 'perhaps I won't be there anymore tomorrow,' but so far they have found nothing that points to concrete preparations for the attack or anyone else being involved.
The man had no previous convictions and had a valid residence permit, although his asylum application had been rejected. He had jobs, including as a store detective. Tilmann said there was no indication of mental illness.
Police said that they know of 36 people who were injured in the attack, two of them very seriously and eight seriously. Tilmann said the suspect is under investigation on 36 counts of attempted murder as well as bodily harm and dangerous interference with road traffic.
Well-wishers laid flowers and lit candles near the site of the attack.
'I'm speechless,' said Anna Zagkoti, 37. 'We had too many other cases like this in other German cities. For me its really sad and it can't continue. Politicians have to do something and we as society as well. We have to stand together and fight it.'
German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier laid a flower at the scene Friday morning. He condemned 'the brutality of this act' and said that it 'leaves us stunned.'
The attack happened a day before the opening of the Munich Security Conference, an annual gathering of international foreign and security policy officials that is accompanied by heavy security.
U.S. Vice President JD Vance offered his condolences at the start of a bilateral meeting with Steinmeier on the sidelines of the event. ' We wish the government the best as you recover and try to care for the victims and families,' he said.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
Father and daughter hikers found dead in Maine state park were ‘especially close'
A New York father and daughter whose bodies were found in a Maine state park last week following extensive search efforts were 'especially close,' according to their joint obituary. The disappearance of Ulster Park residents Esther and Timothy Keiderling, 28 and 58, respectively, sparked large-scale searches in Baxter State Park early last week, state park officials said previously. The pair was last seen hiking up Mount Katahdin the morning of Sunday, June 1. Several law enforcement agencies began looking for the Keiderlings after their car was found still sitting in the day-use parking lot on June 2, officials said. Timothy Keiderling's body was found on June 3 near the mountain's summit, and his daughter's body was found the next afternoon in a wooded area of the state park. Weather conditions are believed to have been a factor in the Keiderlings' deaths, Baxter State Park Director Kevin Adam said last week. Temperatures in the park on June 1 were 30 to 40 degrees, and there was freezing rain, fog and even some snow, he said. Timothy Daniel Keiderling was born in Waterbury, Connecticut, to Ulrich and Ellen Keiderling on Sept. 22, 1966, according to the joint obituary. He grew up in Connecticut and New York with his seven siblings before graduating from Kingston High School in Kingston, New York, in 1983. Timothy Keiderling went on to study computer science at Sullivan County Community College, though his friends say baking was his favorite subject, according to the joint obituary. After graduating high school, he also joined the Bruderhof community — an Anabaptist Christian community of German origin that has spread across the world over the last century, taking his membership vows in 1988. 'Endowed with unquenchable energy and enthusiasm for life, Tim served his community in many capacities: as an elementary school teacher, a financial administrator, and, over the last ten years, as a traveling salesman for Rifton Equipment,' the joint obituary reads. 'As a teacher, he will be remembered most for his infectious energy, his patient kindness, and his ability to pull together the most rambunctious groups of children.' Read more: Father, daughter found dead after days-long search in Maine state park Timothy Keiderling taught world history and geography, according to the joint obituary. He was also an avid outdoorsman who enjoyed leading hikes through the fields and woods of the Hudson Valley, in addition to camping and beekeeping. 'As a salesman for Rifton, a manufacturer of adaptive physical therapy equipment, he was passionate about helping children and adults with disabilities. But he was equally passionate in selling the good news of the Gospel, which he did with unabashed and cheerful vigor,' the joint obituary reads. 'His ability to re-tell stories from the Bible was legendary, and he held both children and adults spellbound with his creative recounting of events from both the Old and New Testaments.' Over the years, Timothy Keiderling and his wife of 31 years, Annemarie Keiderling, raised four daughters — Esther, Sophie, Heidi and Katherine Keiderling — and two sons — Karl and Timothy Keiderling, according to the joint obituary. Timothy and Annemarie Keiderling were also grandparents to two granddaughters. But Timothy Keiderling was especially close to Esther Keiderling — his eldest daughter, according to his obituary. 'What drew both him and Esther to high places was always the view — the broad expanse of God's handiwork, laid out below them,' the joint obituary reads. 'The unbearable tragedy of their passing aside, it is perhaps fitting that they went Home from a mountain top: a place of danger and solitude, but also, a place close to God." Esther Louisa Keiderling was born Jan. 20, 1997, according to the joint obituary. She graduated from The Mount Academy — a Bruderhof seminary in New York — in 2015. Like her father, Esther Keiderling earned a living working for Rifton Equipment's sales department, according to the joint obituary. She was also a frequent contributor to Plough magazine — a Bruderhof publication focusing on faith and spiritual life. Read more: Weather 'definitely a factor' in death of New York hikers in Maine park 'Quieter than her father, Esther was a sensitive, deeply-thinking woman who loved reading and writing, with a particular interest in the poetry of Gerard Manley Hopkins and Edna St. Vincent Millay. (In her last Substack post, on May 31, she urged her readers to read 'all' of Millay's 'Renascence', fittingly written in Maine.),' the joint obituary reads. 'Her friends remember with great fondness how attentive she was to the needs of those around her, noticing when someone needed a word of encouragement or a small gift of some kind. Such gifts often included her own heartfelt poetry.' Timothy and Esther Keiderling are survived by their aforementioned family members and many other beloved friends and relatives, according to the joint obituary. 'The family takes comfort in knowing that Tim and Esther are now with Jesus,' the joint obituary reads. Powerball: See the winning numbers in Monday's $54 million drawing West Springfield man killed in Chicopee shooting remembered as an 'avid reader' Suspect wanted in Brockton shopping plaza shooting turns himself in to police Mass. weather: Central Mass. could see over 1 inch of rain on Tuesday Some Nantucket short-term rentals in jeopardy after land court decision Read the original article on MassLive.
Yahoo
7 hours ago
- Yahoo
The Man Who Attempted to Assassinate Trump Was Reportedly "Having Conversations With Someone That Wasn't There"
The Pennsylvania man who tried to assassinate President Donald Trump last year during a campaign rally was mentally unraveling in the months before the shooting, the New York Times reports, with anecdotes that he was talking to himself and digital records that revealed he was researching the 1963 killing of President John F. Kennedy. Thomas Crooks, 20, was by most accounts a mild-mannered college student who enjoyed engineering and science, according to the NYT, until he became the man who almost killed Trump when his bullet grazed the president's head, leading to an instantly iconic photo of the defiant president shaking his fist in triumph after the shooting. Little has been known about Crooks, whose mysterious motive has sparked wild conspiracy theories. To get to the bottom of the case, reporters combed through Crook's email, texts and internet history, along with interviews of people who knew Crooks, who displayed little evidence that he was planning on shooting the president. The sweep found that he was concerned about depression, while reading up on Trump, Biden, the FBI, and buying guns and ammunition. He even went as far as to build a bomb that was found after the shooting in his childhood home, though it didn't detonate. But there was little to suggest outwardly that he was capable of murder. "There was a mysteriousness to Thomas Crooks's descent into madness," Clay Higgins, a Republican congressman from Louisiana who's researched the shooting, told the NYT. The attempted assassination comes amidst other recent acts of stochastic violence, from Luigi Mangione's killing of a health insurance executive to the New Orleans truck attack that left more than a dozen people dead. It's a difficult environment for law enforcement to operate in, because these kinds of attacks straddle the ideological spectrum. Crooks' political beliefs remain a virtually complete riddle. If there is a commonality about these incidents, it's that the internet often plays a role, whether as a catalyst for violence or as a resource to gather weapons and knowledge. Crooks relied on encryption to conceal his tracks. Mangione created a 3D pistol. Shamsud-Din Jabbar, the New Orleans attacker, was posting conservative Islamic audio on SoundCloud. One other commonality is that all three men started isolating themselves from family and friends — which doesn't bode well for a society that has increasingly atomized itself and has easy access to weapons and incendiary online content. More on President Donald Trump: The Latest Failed Trump Assassin Tried to Buy a Used Rocket from Elon Musk
Yahoo
9 hours ago
- Yahoo
Frederick Forsyth: Life as a thriller writer, fighter pilot, journalist and spy
Frederick Forsyth, who has died at the age of 86, wrote meticulously researched thrillers which sold in their millions. A former fighter pilot, journalist and spy, many of his books were based on his own experience. He wove intricate technical details into his stories, without detracting from the lightning pace of his plots. His research often embarrassed the authorities, who were forced to admit that some of the shady tactics he revealed were used in real-life espionage. Frederick McCarthy Forsyth was born on 25 August 1938 in Ashford, Kent. The only child of a furrier, he dealt with loneliness by immersing himself in adventure stories. Among his favourites were the works John Buchan and H Rider Haggard, but Forsyth adored Ernest Hemingway's book on bullfighters, Death in the Afternoon. He was so captivated that - at the age of 17 - he went to Spain and started practising with a cape. He never actually fought a bull. Instead, he spent five months at the University of Granada before returning to do his national service with the RAF. Having spent years dreaming of becoming a pilot, Forsyth lied about his age so he could fly de Havilland Vampire jets. In 1958, he joined the Eastern Daily Press as a local journalist. Three years later, he moved to the Reuters news agency. At Tonbridge School, Forsyth had excelled in foreign languages but little else. Fluent in French, German, Spanish, and Russian, he was a born foreign correspondent. Posted to Paris, he covered a number of stories relating to assassination attempts on the life of France's President Charles de Gaulle, by members of the Organisation de l'Armee Secrete (OAS). The group of ex-army personnel were angered at de Gaulle's decision to give independence to Algeria after many of their comrades had died fighting Algerian nationalists. Forsyth called the OAS "white colonialists and neo-fascists". And he decided that, if they really wanted to kill de Gaulle, they would have to hire a professional assassin. Forsyth joined the BBC in 1965. Two years later, he was sent to Nigeria to cover the civil war that followed the secession of the south-eastern region of Biafra. When the fighting dragged on far longer than had been expected, Forsyth asked permission to stay and cover it. According to his autobiography, the BBC told him "it is not our policy to cover this war". "I smelt news management," he said. "I don't like news management." He quit his job and continued to cover the war as a freelance reporter for the next two years. He chronicled his experiences in The Biafra Story, which was published in 1969. He later claimed that, while in Nigeria, he began working for MI6, a relationship that continued for two decades. He also become friendly with a number of mercenaries, who taught him how to get a false passport, obtain a gun and break an enemy's neck. All these tricks of the trade would be incorporated in a tale of an attempted assassination of President de Gaulle, The Day of the Jackal, which he pounded out in his bedsit on an old typewriter in just 35 days. He spent months trying to get it published but faced a string of rejections. "For starters, de Gaulle was still alive," he said, "so readers already knew a fictional assassination plot set in 1963 couldn't succeed." Eventually, a publisher risked a short print run and sales of the book, described once as "an assassin's manual", took off, first in the UK and then in the US. The Day of the Jackal showcased what would become the traditional hallmarks of a Forsyth thriller. It wove together fact and fiction, often using the names of real individuals and events. The Jackal's forgery of a British passport, using the name of a dead child taken from a churchyard, was perfectly feasible in the days before electronic databases and cross-checking. The tale was made into an award-winning film in 1973, staring Edward Fox as the anonymous gunman. Forsyth followed up his success with The Odessa File, the story of a German reporter attempting to track down Eduard Roschmann - a notorious Nazi nicknamed the "Butcher of Riga" - who is protected by a secret society of former SS men known as Odessa. As part of his research, Forsyth travelled to Hamburg posing as a South African arms dealer. "I managed to penetrate their world and was feeling rather proud of myself," he later said. "What I didn't know was that the (contact) had passed a bookshop shortly after our meeting. And there, in the window, was The Day of the Jackal, with a great big picture of me on the back cover." The film of the book led to the identification of the real "Butcher of Riga", who was living in Argentina - after one of his neighbours went to see it at the local cinema. He was arrested by the Argentinian authorities, but skipped bail and fled to Paraguay. The book also mentioned a hoard of Nazi gold that was exported to Switzerland in 1944. Twenty-five years after publication, the Jewish World Congress discovered this passage and, eventually, located gold valued at £1bn. According to the Sunday Times, Forsyth's third novel, The Dogs of War, drew on his experience of organising a coup in Africa. The newspaper reported that Forsyth had once spent $200,000 hiring a boat and recruiting European and African soldiers of fortune for a raid designed to oust the President of Equatorial Guinea in 1972. The plan was said to have failed when the arrangements broke down and the soldiers were intercepted by the Spanish police in the Canary Islands, 3,000 miles from their objective. Then came Devil's Alternative, in which Britain's first female prime minister, Joan Carpenter, was firmly based on Margaret Thatcher, a politician Forsyth greatly admired. She later appeared, under her real name, in four Forsyth novels. There was a move into biography in 1982 with Emeka, the life story of Forsyth's friend Col Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu, the head of state of Biafra during that country's brief independence. In 1984, he returned to the novel with The Fourth Protocol: a complex tale of a Soviet plot to influence the British general election and install a hard-left Labour government. The book so impressed Sir Michael Caine that he persuaded Forsyth to allow a film version, in which the veteran actor starred alongside Pierce Brosnan. In the late 1980s, Forsyth separated from his first wife, the former model Carole Cunningham and was photographed alongside the actress Faye Dunaway. The Negotiator, published in 1991, continued the successful run while The Deceiver, the tale of a maverick but brilliant MI6 agent, was made into a BBC mini-series. After two more thrillers, The Fist of God and Icon, Forsyth took an abrupt detour with The Phantom of Manhattan: a sequel to the Phantom of the Opera, which had been a successful musical. It was not a great success but, in 2010, Andrew Lloyd Webber took elements of it for his musical follow-up to Phantom, Love Never Dies. A second set of short stories, The Veteran, also had mixed reviews but Forsyth bounced back in his usual style with Avenger, a 2003 political thriller and, three years later, The Afghan, which had links with the earlier Fist of God. By now, Forsyth had established a reputation as a broadcaster and political pundit. He was a frequent guest on the BBC's topical debate programme Question Time, as someone who held views on the right of the political spectrum. A committed Eurosceptic, he once derailed former Prime Minister Ted Heath on the programme - after proving that he had indeed, despite his denials, once signed a document agreeing to transfer UK gold reserves to Frankfurt. On turning 70, the pace of his writing began to slow. The Cobra, published in 2010, saw the return of some of the characters from Avenger. In 2013, Forsyth published The Kill List, a fast-moving tale built round a Muslim fanatic called The Preacher, whose online videos encouraged young Muslims to carry out a series of killings. He wrote all his books on a typewriter and refused to use the internet for his research. Ironically, his 18th novel, The Fox - published in 2018 - was a spy thriller about a gifted computer hacker. Forsyth announced it was to be his final book, but he later came out of self-imposed retirement after the death of his second wife, Sandy, in 2024. He said he was writing another adventure, and even suggested a raffle might give someone the chance to name a character after themselves. Having sold the film rights for £20,000 in the 1970s, Forsyth received no payment for Eddie Redmayne's version of The Day of the Jackal when it was re-imagined for television last year on Sky. Well into his 80s, he had long since agreed to stop research trips to far-flung parts of the world - when a trip to Guinea-Bissau left him with an infection that nearly cost him a leg. "It is a bit drug-like, journalism," he admitted. "I don't think that instinct ever dies." It was an instinct that made his life as full and exciting as his thrillers. The Day Of The Jackal author Frederick Forsyth dies Lee Child: Why Forsyth's Jackal changed thriller writing Frederick Forsyth reveals spy past
