A suspected Islamic attack in Munich has ignited fierce political debate on security and migration just over a week before Germany’s federal election.
German authorities confirmed on Friday that an attack on a labor demonstration in Munich on Thursday was motivated by Islamic extremism.
A 24-year-old Afghan national admitted to deliberately driving a car into a labor union protest, injuring 36 people, including a child who remains in critical condition, the authorities said.
Gabriele Tilmann, Munich’s lead prosecutor for counterextremism, told a press conference on Friday that investigators found no evidence that the suspect was part of a larger network. However, police on the scene reported that the driver shouted “Allahu Akbar” after the incident, before admitting a religious motive.
The case has triggered a heated political debate just weeks before Germany’s federal election.
Chancellor Olaf Scholz condemned the incident as a “horrific act” and vowed to push for harsher deportation policies. “Anyone who commits such crimes and does not hold German citizenship must leave our country,” Scholz said on a talk show Thursday evening.
His conservative rival, Friedrich Merz of the center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU), criticized the government’s handling of migration and security, saying: “The current government has completely failed on security.”
The far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party took an even more aggressive stance, with co-leader Alice Weidel blaming Bavaria’s ruling Christian Social Union (CSU) — the sister-party of the CDU — for failing to deport the suspect earlier. “This would never happen under an AfD-led government,” she claimed.
Meanwhile, Lars Klingbeil, head of Scholz’s center-left Social Democrats (SPD), called for unity. “Security must be the top priority — whether we are in an election campaign or not,” he said.