eugyppius:

Yesterday, a Saudi-born man named Taleb al-Abdulmohsen rented a black BMW sport utility vehicle and drove it into a crowd at the Christmas market in Magdeburg, killing five people and injuring 200. It is the second such attack in German history, following the 2016 Berlin truck attack by the unsuccessful Tunisian asylum seeker Anis Amri, exactly eight years and one day prior.

…

Al-Abdulmohsen is a 50 year-old psychiatrist and psychotherapist who lived in Bernburg, 46km south of Magdeburg. He first came to Germany from Saudi Arabia in March 2006, when he was granted political asylum. German authorities repeatedly refused Saudi Arabian requests that he be extradited. The Saudis accused him of terrorism and human trafficking, for alleged complicity with efforts to smuggle Arab girls to the European Union. Al-Abdulmohsen finally obtained refugee status and permanent residence in Germany in July 2016, and for years he has worked at a government clinic in Bernburg, where he has treated patients for problems with addiction.

Isn’t it sad that these people receive so few resources from the state and feel so culturally disrespected that they feel the need to do these things? If Germany was just a bit more generous or tolerant these events probably wouldn’t happen.

I don’t know what the killer’s motivations were. He posted some stuff online but I’m just going to speculate and assign motivations to him, which is what one does in these situations. I imagine that he was just so broken up about carbon emissions or disproportionately low levels of female executives in German companies. He was fairly famous and vocal and has even been interviewed by major German newspapers… yet still he felt unheard.

Tragic