New details have emerged about the Islamist terrorist attack on Christopher Street Day (CSD) in Berlin: The assailant Abdul B. is alleged to have sent a confession video to a suspected ISIS contact in Syria before carrying out his act. This is reported by WDR and the Süddeutsche Zeitung (SZ), citing security circles.
Abdul B. drove a vehicle into a crowd at the edge of the CSD parade in Berlin’s Tiergarten district on the evening of July 25. One woman was killed, around 30 other people were injured, several of them severely. The attacker initially fled the scene, but left his mobile phone in the car. On the phone, investigators found a video seemingly produced by the assailant himself, in which a masked Abdul B. swears an oath of allegiance to the Islamic State (ISIS) in Arabic.
Was the ISIS contact still alive?
According to the investigations by WDR and SZ, the perpetrator did indeed send this CSD attacker-confession video — contrary to earlier assumptions. The recipient is said to be a London-born, Syria-based Islamist woman with whom Abdul B. had already been in contact in the days leading up to the attack. Based on the current state of the investigations, she was not involved in the concrete attack plans and did not direct the attacker. A spokesperson for the Federal Public Prosecutor’s Office declined to comment, citing ongoing inquiries.
The security authorities, according to the report, believe the video was to be forwarded via the woman to a representative of ISIS’s propaganda division. This man is said to have died in fighting in the Gaza Strip — a possible explanation for why the confession video, unlike in previous Islamist attacks, was never publicly released.
Abdul B. was shot dead by police a day after the CSD attack during an operation in a community garden in Berlin-Spandau. The assault on the Pride event had been classified as Islamist, anti-LGBTQ terrorism and had sparked nationwide horror as well as vigils by the LGBTQ community.
