Another Magdeburg Market Terror Plot Proves Need for “Decisive Action”

A man, described in the German national press only as a 21-year-old Central Asian, was arrested in Magdeburg on Friday to prevent him from carrying out attacks against large crowds.

The timing and location are significant. Just a year ago, a Saudi psychiatrist and refugee who was known to German police drove a car into a crowded Magdeburg Christmas market during the city’s festivities, killing six people. It is for this reason that this year’s market quietly opened under tight security.

So too are the few details that have been made public about the Central Asian suspect. Welt reports that he came to Germany last summer and completed nursing training. Security sources claim that he has military experience (!) and that there are indications he planned to carry out an attack using a vehicle.

A figure from Germany’s interior ministry also said that the plans may have had an Islamist motivation.

Another five men were arrested last week for allegedly planning an Islamist-motivated attack on a Christmas market in Bavaria, likely involving using a car. The suspects include an Egyptian, a Syrian and three Moroccan nationals.

Linking the Magdeburg arrest to the weekend’s shooting at Bondi Beach, AfD politician Martin Hess said that “the Islamist threat is growing—at home and abroad.”

The politically responsible have looked away for too long. It is finally time for decisive action.

But as always, it seems the establishment is still not listening.

The authorities are currently working on deporting the 21-year-old suspect.

Matthias Büttner, the domestic policy spokesman of the AfD parliamentary group, commented that “instead of deporting individual persons after or shortly before the commission of serious crimes, decisive action must be taken across the board. A large-scale deportation offensive is needed.”