A Saudi Arabian citizen reportedly drove a rented car into a crowd of people at a Christmas market in the German city of Magdeburg on Friday night. At least two people, a small child and an adult, have been killed with dozens more wounded. This comes as Washington is backing an Al Qaeda takeover of Damascus while the US concurrently backs an Israeli genocide unleashed against the Palestinians living in the Gaza Strip.
According to officials, the driver has been identified as a 50-year-old Saudi Arabian citizen who first arrived in Germany in 2006 and has since been working as a small town doctor 25 miles south of where the attack took place. The driver has been arrested and officials tentatively believe he is working alone.
Per spokesmen for Magdeburg and the regional government, of the over 65 victims in the deliberate attack, 14 have been injured severely. Authorities are still working to establish a motive, Reiener Haseloff, the Saxony-Anhalt governor said. Haseloff added, “this is a terrible event, especially now in the days leading up to Christmas.”
There are more than 1,000 Christmas markets put up in Germany each year, these have come under attack previously including in 2016 when a truck plowed into a Berlin crowd, killing 13 people. As a result, these places have been given additional security from police forces, however, it is still unclear how the driver in Magdeburg evaded barriers protecting the market. Surveillance footage being shared on social media shows the car slamming into the market with those wounded subsequently writhing in pain and screaming before the vehicle turns right down another crowded street.
This comes as the US and Israel, along with Washington’s NATO ally Turkey, have supported the overthrow of former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad by Al Qaeda-linked terrorists spearheaded by Abu Mohammed al-Julani. Julani is a former deputy ISIS commander and founder of Al Qaeda’s Syria affiliate, the Al Nusra Front. The group rebranded itself seven years ago and is now known as Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS). HTS seized power in Damascus earlier this month. President Joe Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have taken credit for the Al Qaeda victory, boasting that it would not have been possible absent Israel’s relentless US-backed bombing of both Hezbollah, in southern Lebanon, and their allies in Syria.
Israel has been exploiting the chaotic situation by stealing more Syrian territory and launching hundreds of airstrikes in the country targeting the former government’s military assets. The White House deployed Barbara Leaf, the State Department’s top Middle East diplomat, to Syria for a meeting with Julani. Leaf announced on Friday that the administration was removing the $10 million bounty on Julani’s head as his group has been designated a foreign terrorist organization since 2017 when Washington acknowledged that it was simply Al Qaeda using an alias.
For decades, US citizens have been subject to Al Qaeda attacks, including by so-called “lone wolves,” as a result of Washington’s Middle East foreign policy. The pilot 9/11 hijackers, known as the “Hamburg cell,” were motivated to kill Americans over US military, financial, and diplomatic support for Tel Aviv’s atrocities committed in Palestine and southern Lebanon during the 1990s. For over a year, the Joe Biden administration has supplied Israel with over 50,000 tons of weapons to carry out what Human Rights Watch calls its “extermination” policy in the Gaza Strip. Hundreds of thousands of Palestinian Muslims and Christians have been slaughtered and maimed since October 2023.
According to recent studies, for the last several years, Berlin has been Israel’s largest benefactor in terms of military aid after Washington.
Connor Freeman is the assistant editor and a writer at the Libertarian Institute, primarily covering foreign policy. He is a co-host on the Conflicts of Interest podcast. His writing has been featured in media outlets such as Antiwar.com, Counterpunch, and the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity. He has also appeared on Liberty Weekly, Around the Empire, and Parallax Views. You can follow him on Twitter @FreemansMind96.
