Security questions about Christmas market attack in Magdeburg – DW – 12/22/2024

German security forces faced a number of tough questions at Saturday’s press conference in Magdeburg. The Friday night attack, in which 50-year-old Saudi man Talib A.* drove a car into a crowd at a busy Christmas market in the Saxony-Anhalt capital, killed five people and injured more than 200.

As senior police officers and city officials faced the press, some journalists became impatient without getting clear answers to their questions: How could the police fail to protect the Christmas market? How were clear warnings from Saudi officials not heard? How did the suspected criminal’s disturbing social media posts fail to raise alarm bells?

Only two days later, many of these questions clearly remain difficult to answer, although the results have already emerged: Federal and state police forces convened a conference call Saturday morning, in which hundreds of Christmas markets gathered to increase police presence. And it was agreed to re-evaluate security measures. Across the country.

Christmas market safety

The most immediate question concerns concrete security plans. The December 2016 attack on a Berlin Christmas market, when a Tunisian asylum seeker drove a truck into a crowd, killing 13 people, resulted in two parliamentary investigations and immediate security upgrades: heavy concrete blocks, road blocks, and police presence. increased. Introduced into markets throughout Germany and Austria.

But it appears that the markets, which attract thousands of people and appear in almost every available space in German cities in the 5-6 weeks before Christmas, can never be completely safe from vehicles – partly. Partly because emergency vehicles also need to be able to reach the market, and because multiple emergency exits are needed for people to escape.

“The places the criminals used were emergency access roads and emergency exits,” Ronny Krug, a Magdeburg city official, told reporters on Saturday. Because there were not enough emergency exits. He said that the security plan at all Christmas markets in Magdeburg “was created according to the best knowledge” and that security plans for such markets were constantly updated.

Hans-Jakob Schindler of the Counter Extremism Project (CEP), an international non-profit policy advice organization, was not entirely satisfied with this explanation. But he acknowledged that the security plan – combining physical barriers, police officers on the ground and security cameras – was a classic concept used for all major public events.

“The most obvious and obvious thing is the physical barriers at Christmas markets: There should be no difference in the physical barriers that don’t let cars in,” he told DW. “Even if they were only temporarily left open, the culprit was clearly aware of it, because he rented a car and drove to the Christmas market – so he knew that he would go to the market with the car. Will enter.”

Leaks and intelligence failures

But this was clearly not the only failure – several holes in Germany’s security architecture had to align to allow the Magdeburg attack to happen, although assessing where exactly those holes were would take months, if at all, to resolve. Not years.

Speaking to public broadcaster ZDF on Saturday evening, Holger Munch, the head of Germany’s federal police force BKA, described the suspected criminal as “extraordinary”. Talib A’s social media posts show that he was opposed to the Saudi regime, believed that Saudi dissidents were being persecuted by German authorities, but he was also dissatisfied with Germany’s liberal policy towards refugees and he Far-right alternatives were supported. Germany (AfD).

Citing unnamed security sources, German press agency dpa reported that Saudi authorities had warned their German counterparts about Talib A last year, and had requested his extradition – though lacking details about its significance. Leaves the question: Did the Saudi government request his extradition because he was a regime critic, or because they viewed him as a threat to public security?

Without knowing the answer, it seems difficult to apportion blame, according to Schindler: “A warning is not always a warning about what is going to happen – it can be about many other things as well. In context, it may not be a warning.” Is as serious as it should have been.”

Still, it is clear there were concerns about Talib A’s erratic behaviour: In Berlin, a 50-year-old man was accused of misusing an emergency phone number after an altercation with officers at a police station in February this year . , He was scheduled to appear at a court hearing (his own appeal against the charges) the day before the attack, but he failed to appear in court.

Last year, a warning was also sent by a private citizen to Germany’s Federal Office for Migration and Refugee (BAMF) about Talib A. BAMF said, this warning has been taken seriously and has been passed on to the relevant authorities.

Lack of social media moderation

The fact that Talib A was apparently very active on social media over the past few years raises new questions about the role of platforms like X and Facebook in tracking and driving radicalization.

Several German media outlets reported that Talib A’s now-deleted posts on Trying to make it Islamic.

Schindler said, “This is a very good case of showing that the classic Islamist, right-wing extremist, left-wing extremist categories have been augmented by another category of individuals who create their own ideological, personal narratives.” “This has been a growing trend since the pandemic, and social media companies are doing less than before. You do not have to be a staunch supporter of IS (Islamic State). In this conspiratorial environment, any extremist narrative , “When you take it to its conclusion, it will inevitably lead to violence.”

Elon Musk fired several thousand content moderators after taking over the platform, then called Twitter, in 2022. According to Schindler, this has led to a situation where society expects increased policing in offline spaces, while there is a negligent lack of moderation on online platforms. ,

Schindler concluded, “We need to stop accepting that this industry, one of the most profitable in human history, has zero legal responsibility for the content on its platforms and zero willingness to actively work with security forces. There is a legal responsibility.”

But any such rule will take some time to be implemented. Right now, German security officials are dealing with the urgent question of whether and how they could have stopped the Magdeburg attacker.

*Editor’s note: DW follows the German press code, which emphasizes the importance of protecting the privacy of suspected perpetrators or victims and urges us to refrain from disclosing the full names of alleged perpetrators.

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