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Five dead and 200 injured in Magdeburg Christmas market attack
00:30:29
Prosecutors suggest the suspect was unhappy with the treatment of Saudi refugees
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Bernadette Keough
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Play for free now@tempacasino.com BMW Crew no purchase necessary, void or prohibited by law. See terms and conditions 18 + this is the global news podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Bernadette Keough and in the early hours of Sunday 22nd December, these are our main stories. The German city of Magdeburg is in mourning after a car was driven into a crowd at a Christmas market, killing five. We hear about the possible motives the suspected attacker may have had. Albania is to shut down TikTok for at least a year. Also in this podcast, the US avoids a government shutdown after days of political turmoil and the musicians of Syria pondering what the new Islamic leadership will mean for creative freedom. We are willing to talk to them with logic. We are willing to talk to them with the real proposal. It doesn't seem like in the first week of freeing Syria they are willing to look for the cultural side. We start in Germany and Friday evenings attack at a Christmas market in Magdeburg. The number of people killed has risen to five. A nine year old child was among them. 200 people were injured, around 40 of them seriously. The suspect who was arrested at the scene has been identified as a 50 year old Dr. Taleb Al Abdulmohsen from Saudi Arabia. Residents of the city have been laying flowers for the victims of the attack and there's still a sense of profound shock. Unbelievably sad. It's unbelievable. I feel shocked. There are no words, no suitable words. I live right behind them all the Ali Center. It's simply unbelievable. On Saturday evening, a memorial service took place at Magdeburg Cathedral. Hundreds of people were in attendance, including families of the victims and emergency service workers. Earlier on Saturday, during his visit to Magdeburg, the German Chancellor, Olaf Scholz, described the attack as a tragedy and called for unity. Our correspondent, Bethany Bell has spent the day in the city. Magdeburg is in mourning. Outside a church close to the Christmas market, people have been laying flowers and lighting candles. Many were in tears, struggling to understand how an evening of holiday celebrations could turn into such a nightmare. This morning, Germany's Chancellor, Olaf Scholz placed a white rose at the site. He said the attack was a dreadful tragedy. It's important to me that when such a terrible, horrific event takes place, that we stay together as a country, that we stick together and that we unite, that it's not hatred that determines our togetherness, but the fact that we are a community that wants to win a common future and that we won't let those who want to sow hatred get away with it. Other national and regional politicians joined Mr. Schulz in paying tribute to the victims. But as they left, there were angry shouts from the crowd. Go away. They yelled. We are the people. More details have emerged about the suspect, who's been named by police as Taleb Al Abdelmhsen. Originally from Saudi Arabia, he arrived in Germany in 2006 and was recognised as a refugee. In 2016, he worked as a psychiatrist at a specialist clinic in the nearby town of Bernburg. The clinic said he'd worked there since 2020, but had not been on duty since October because of sickness, and holiday officials are still working to clarify the motive. Germany's Interior Minister, Nancy Faser, said the suspect was believed to hold Islamophobic views. At a news conference, the chief prosecutor in Magdeburg, Horst Walther Knopens, outlined one theory they were investigating. As things stand at present, it appears that the backdrop to this incident is perhaps being unsatisfied about the way in which Saudi Arabian refugees are treated in Germany, potentially, but we didn't have a focus on the perpetrator. We didn't have him in our sights or on our radar, so to speak. There was once a proceeding that involved the perpetrator, but we didn't have him in our sights thinking that he might commit this kind of crime. Not at all. So to not get the wrong end of the stick. At the news conference, police also said the suspect had driven the car using a route meant for the emergency services, which didn't have barricades, but they denied a lapse in security. The market itself has been closed and is cordoned off. In the words of one local, Christmas in Magdeburg is over. Bethany Bell Other strands of investigation into the suspect are also coming to light, as our security correspondent Frank Gardner explains. A source close to the Saudi government tells me it sent four official notifications, known as notes verbal, to the German authorities warning them about what it said were the very extreme views held by Talib Al Abdelmhsen. The source, who asked not to be named, said these notifications contained details about him. Three were sent to Germany's intelligence agencies and one to the Foreign Ministry, but all, the source said, were ignored. Reports have emerged in the German media of the suspect's campaigns against his country's official religion, Islam, and of his fury at the policy of his adopted home, Germany, in letting in such huge numbers of Muslim refugees from the Middle East. He is also reported to have tried to help young Saudi women and critics of the government there escape from Saudi Arabia and seek asylum in Germany. In the past, there have been cases reported of agents of the Saudi government carrying out surveillance on dissident Saudis living in Germany and Canada and attempts to bring them back to Saudi Arabia by force. Dr. Hans Jakob Schindler is senior director at the Counter Extremism Project in Berlin. He gave his take on why the suspect may have carried out the attack. He spoke to the BBC's Owen Bennett Jones. It is very hard. The best guesstimate that you can make looking at what he has been communicating over the last couple of years is that he really belongs into this conspiratorial narrative category of extremists, which had been growing quite significantly since the CORONA epidemic. And social media companies are really not doing anything against those people. They are not quite effective in preventing Islamist terrorism. Content which they know best. But conspiratorial narratives such as this, especially individualized conspiratorial narratives because he also felt personally persecuted by the German police, is something that these companies simply don't look at. And the German security forces neither have the legal mandate nor the resources to monitor the entire Internet all the time. Yeah, but I mean, even if you had monitored the Internet and seen his conspiracy theories, you wouldn't think they would lead to a violent act like this, would you? Well, not necessarily, but he did say he is going to do an attack. He did say he's going to take revenge. So there were clear formulations. But the problem is, and this is going to be always a difficult thing of assessment for the security forces to go over, unfortunately, because the big social media companies, in this case X, where all of this material is, have not gotten better, but they reduced their content monitoring capabilities and investments. You have so much hatred and so many fantasies of violence on the Internet that it's really hard to distinguish what is just a person that is disturbed and just lives disturbed ideas out on the Internet and which one of those is a person that then gets into a car and plows through a Christmas market. I take your point that there were some worrying signs online. Basically he was anti system. Is that the sort of broad category you could put him in? That is the most fitting category. When you say the police prosecutes me individually because I'm critical of Islam and Germany as a society and the police attempting to Islamicize Europe, that is the kind of conspiracy narrative that denies the legitimacy of the system. That's the best fit. But he remains a very weird character. Hans Jakob Schindler of the Counterextremism Project in Berlin. The social network TikTok is to be shut down in Albania from the beginning of next year. The decision, announced by the country's prime minister, Edi Rama, follows concerns raised over the influence of social media on children. The ban is part of a broader plan to make schools safer. With more details, here's our Europe regional editor, Danny Eberhardt. For Prime Minister Edi Rama, restrictions aren't enough. There will be no TikTok in the Republic of Albania, he declared, following a national consultation with teachers and parents to improve child safety. TikTok, he said, was the neighbourhood thug. He's linked the use of the video sharing site and other social media to to violence in schools. It follows the stabbing of a 14 year old boy last month, one of a number of school killings or stabbings this year. The boy was caught up in a dispute allegedly played out on social media. TikTok has told the BBC it had found no evidence that the person who allegedly stabbed the 14 year old or the victim himself had TikTok accounts. It also said it's seeking urgent clarifications from the Albanian government about the proposed ban. Albania's education minister has promised greater efforts to teach children about the risks of platforms such as TikTok and Snapchat. But her approach to improving child safety is not just about clamping down on social media. She has promised to employ hundreds more psychosocial support workers in schools, increase extracurricular sports and to pilot summer schools in Tirana. The effects of social media on kids development is causing concern globally as regards screen addictions, bullying and related anxieties. Australia recently passed the world's strictest measures, voting to ban kids under 16 from using social media. That particular ban will take at least a year to implement. Danny Eberhard. In talks on Friday in Syria's capital, visiting US diplomats called on the country's new Islamist leaders to respect the rights of all citizens. Syria's musicians will be watching closely. The 14 year civil war gave energy and focus to a nascent heavy metal scene. Electronic music and dance shows also flourished, leading to a resurgence of Syrian nightlife. Barbara Plet Usher talked to musicians in Damascus about how they see this new era for Syria after the fall of the Assad government. Syrian Metal is war. That's the title of this documentary on an underground music scene that found energy and focus as the country was consumed with conflict. Nal Al Hadidi sold heavy metal cassettes in his music store some 20 years ago. As local bands began to form, they operated in the shadows because the rebellious rock was forbidden. Even if you grow hairs going in black shirts, the security will take you. Yeah, they suspect that you are satanic or something. Satanic, yes. That's what happened before the war. After the war they were too busy to dig in this way. So in a way, the war was good for heavy metal then it gave you more space. Yes, I can say that. But it is not good because most of people start to leave the country. 90% of my friends now in Europe, Netherlands and Germany. Wajat Khair is a musician who stayed, but he quit music when the killing started. It seemed that any lyrics I would write, they don't express what really happened. No words can express what really happened in him back then. Just last year, Wajid finally started playing and recording again. A different style of music this time. Now he's wondering what the new Islamist leadership, known as hts, means for creative freedom. Is there any sense that you feel you need to keep a low profile until you figure out exactly where things are going musically? Actually, no. We have to be heard, we have to to let all the people know that we are here, we exist. It's not just Islamic fronts and Islamic states here. Actually, I don't think that keeping low profile under these circumstances is good for anyone. It's electronic music that led the resurgence of Syria's nightlife over the past few years, with big dance parties in historic locations. DJ Maher Green is one of the musicians involved. He. He says people in the industry are preparing to approach the Islamist government. We are willing to talk to them with logic. We are willing to talk to them with real proposals. It doesn't seem like in the first week of freeing Syria, they are willing to look for the cultural side. They have a lot of other problems to look for. We are trying to organize ourselves before they are looking for the culture so we get there first. Like others here, Maher has been experimenting, mixing traditional Arabic music with electronic beats. He's wary about the conservative views of the rebels. The culture is religious songs, religious melodies, and that's it. We have so much experiments, we have so much involved, we have so much mixed culture. Syria's music scene has revived and even thrived during the civil war. Now it faces a new and unexpected test. That report by Barbara Pletocher. Still to come, people were suffering from human trafficking, marriage between underage kids, also pregnancy without the consent of the children. Authorities in Guatemala say they have rescued 160 children from a religious sect. World of Secrets is where untold stories are exposed. And in this new series we investigate the dark side of the wellness industry, following the story of a woman who joined a yoga school only to uncover a world she never expected. I feel that I have no other choice. The only thing I can do is to speak about this where the hope of spiritual breakthroughs leaves people vulnerable to exploitation. You just get sucked in so gradually, and it's done so skillfully that you don't realize. World of Secrets the Bad Guru Listen wherever you get your BBC podcasts every day. When you log into Chumbacasino.com, the ultimate online social casino, you get a free daily bonus. Imagine if you got daily bonuses in other parts of your life. I chose french fries. Over loaded french fries. I asked Stuart from accounting about his weekend. Even though I don't care. I updated my operating system without having to call tech support. Collect your free daily bonus@chumbacasino.com now. Ch Ch Chumba and live the Chumba life. BGW Group no purchase necessary. Void where prohibited by law. See terms and conditions 18/ La Ventura Tienium Nuevo nombre Nissan Rogue Rock Creek Con la Rogue Rock Creek estaras listo paraconquistad el camino quebenga sies una ruta rocosa tienes jantas todo terreno Antuna gran bajada control para de sanctu clinado y su parrilla Tu bular paratecho Lisa para lo que necesecites cuando la Vida Teofreshe Aventura 2 Tienes La Nissan Rogue Rock Creek Recently a new client called me and started by saying, Mr. Morgan, I really need your help, but I'm just a nobody. Those words stunned me and I immediately called him back. And we're now helping him and his family after a terrible accident. I'm John Morgan of Morgan and Morgan. Everybody who comes to our firm at their time of need is a somebody. I grew up poor, but my grandmother was like a corporate. At Morgan and Morgan, our goal is to level the playing field for you and your family at your time of need. The insurance company has unlimited money and resources. You need a firm who can fight them toe to toe for right at 30 years. We have fought them in courtrooms throughout America. Our results speak for themselves. And always remember this, everybody is a somebody and nobody is a nobody. Visit forthepeople.com to learn about our firm, Morgan and Morgan. For the people injured, visit forthepeople.com for an office near you. To Lebanon now and it's almost a month since the ceasefire was agreed between Hezbollah and Israel. Hezbollah had been trading attacks across the southern Lebanese border with Israel in response to Israel's bombardment of Gaza following the October 7 attacks by Hamas. Now, as part of the truce deal, the Lebanese army is tasked with ensuring there are no armed militias, principally Hezbollah, in the south of the country bordering with Israel, a duty it has never undertaken before. Our Middle east regional editor, Sebastian Usher, who is in Beirut, told me more. When Israel launched the major part of its offensive, including the ground offensive against Hezbollah back in October, it targeted mainly the southern suburbs of Beirut, the Bekar Valley in the east, parts of which are under Hezbollah control, and the south. So in all of those areas, the Lebanese army has been clearing roads, opening roads, clearing rubbish and debris. There are parts of south Lebanon which are almost flattened by the Israeli airstrikes that took place and also the unexploded munitions from Israel in particular. Today it staged about a seven hour operation devoted to that in several areas. So all of these are building some confidence in Lebanon and outside that. This ceasefire deal, despite many violations that have taken place, may hold. But the real challenge that lies ahead for the Lebanese army is when it makes a full deployment, particularly down in the south. Sebastian, you arrived in Beirut a short while ago. What's the mood of the people there? What have people been saying to you? I mean, this was only just over three weeks ago that the ceasefire happened. It was greeted, I think, far more jubilantly here in Lebanon than it was in Israel. There was great joy in the first days and people rushed down to the southern villages and towns that they'd had to leave. But I think what I find with lots of people here is a sense almost of unreality that they can't believe that this can hold, that things can move in a positive direction. A sense that something is simmering, something unnamed is under the surface that may suddenly explode in everyone's faces. People here are wondering what Hezbollah might do next within the context of a country where politically things might move people. I think they're enjoying the sense at the moment that, you know, the fighting has stopped, the risk to life etc has stopped. People have been coming back. I mean, all the flights, it was almost impossible to find a flight to come to Lebanon. And it's given them a great sense of humor about the way things go and also a sense of not ever taking anything for what it looks like on the surface. Sebastian Usher the authorities in Guatemala say they've rescued 160 children from a farm used by an ultra orthodox Jewish sect which is under investigation for alleged child sex abuse. The group Lev Tahor moved to Guatemala a decade ago from Canada. The Lev to Horse sect accused the Guatemalan authorities of religious persecution. Jodi Garcia is a freelance journalist from Guatemala. She told Owen Bennett Jones more about the group. The authorities raided the place because they have information that these people were suffering from human trafficking. Some of the children and women escaped and ran to the police to present legal complaints about treatments that they were receiving inside the community. For example, marriage between underage k also pregnancy without the consent of the children. Now what the authorities did yesterday was to rescue about 160 children and teenagers that might have been victims of human trafficking and other crimes. And they detained one. Police accused that he might be leaking information to Lebdahor to let them know that they were theories were trying to investigate them. Were these children Jewish children from the community? Were they brought in from other countries? The information available right now is that some of the nationalities are Canada and the United States and they were brought in here to Guatemala in some cases with the consent of the parents that were part already of the community. And this is a religious outfit, is it? It's mainly religious. They say to the authorities that they study the Bible. They want to live by their own rules. Like children don't go to school. They are educated inside of farm. The woman and children are totally covered with clothes. It sounds like a cult. Do you know how many people were there? Yes, sounds like a cult. And according to the authorities, it's about 500 people that live in this area and 160 were on the rage. There's someone, a special prosecutor saying that officers found bodies that had been buried there. Yes, yes. Yesterday the prosecutor informed that they have a dog there and they found case with a body. The suspicious is that it's an underage or a baby. We spoke with some of the authorities and they were explaining that they received information that some of the teenagers died giving birth and sometimes the bodies were buried inside the farm. Yesterday, the Jewish community in Guatemala released a statement saying that they take distance from Leb Tahor. They don't have anything to do with them and they say that they will help if they can abort something. So it sounds like this group will now be broken up. Right now investigation is ongoing. Actually the raid ended last night almost at 11pm so the prosecutors mentioned that all these crimes might be committed by one person of the community, one leader, but at the moment they haven't been detained. Freelance journalist Jodi Garcia In Guatemala, it's become a familiar ritual in Washington in recent years. Politicians in the US Congress trying to come up with a last minute deal to agree a budget in order to avoid a partial government shutdown. After two failed attempts and with a Friday night deadline fast approaching, Republicans and Democrats finally voted to pass a spending plan. Shortly after it was passed, speaker of the House Mike Johnson said he'd been keeping in close contact with Donald Trump and Elon Musk. I was in constant contact with President Trump throughout this process. Spoke with him most recently about 45 minutes ago. I think he certainly is happy about this outcome come as well. Elon Musk and I talked within about an hour ago and we talked about the extraordinary challenges of this job and I said, hey, you want to be speaker of the House? I don't know. He said this may be the hardest job in the world. I think it is. After the agreement in the House of Representatives, the budget was also passed by the Senate. Here's the Senate Democrat leader Chuck Schumer. There will be no government shutdown right before Christmas. This is a good bill. It'll keep the government open and funds and helps Americans affected by hurricanes and natural disasters, helps our farmers and avoid harmful cuts. While the immediate crisis has probably been averted, all the scrapping and the scraping together of a compromise has also raised pressing questions about who wields real political power in Washington. My colleague Paul Moss got more details about the passing of the bill from our North America correspondent, Peter Bowes. It's a pared down spending bill to keep the government functioning for the next three months. That's all just enough that both sides, Democrats and Republicans, could agree to avoid a shutdown. It includes, amongst other things, funding for disaster relief and there's some aid for farmers. But it doesn't include a debt ceiling measure that Donald Trump wanted. That's a limit on government borrowing that the president elect has been campaigning for. He would like to see the ceiling suspended for at least the next two years. The Democrats are hailing that omission as a victory. Their leader in the House, Hakeem Jeffrey, said that they had successfully stopped, to use his words, the billionaire boys club that wanted a $4 trillion blank cheque by suspending the debt ceiling. Now, Peter, this time yesterday, you and I were talking about all this and talking about the role of Elon Musk. Now we hear that when the House speaker spoke to Donald Trump to try to sort out all of this mess, he had Elon Musk on the line. Now, it does seem once again that Mr. Musk is having quite an influence on major issues in America. Well, you know, this Trump Musk double act is emerging as certainly a newer, rather unusual force in Washington. We know that Speaker Johnson was in constant touch with the president elect, Donald Trump, but that Elon Musk has, as you say, also weighed in, sometimes very vocally, very publicly, to the bemusement annoyance of many in Washington, especially the Democrats. Remember when the bill was first released on Tuesday, he said any member of the House or Senate who voted for what he called this outrageous spending bill deserved to be voted out in two years. He called it one of the worst bills ever written. Now, it's important to remember that no one has voted for Elon Musk. He is a Trump appointee to an unpaid post, a spending czar with the new administration. But I think many in the Republican Party especially will be watching very closely to see how or whether he continues to wield power, if that's what it is, in the way that we've seen it in the last few days. Well, so much for Elon Musk's power. What about Donald Trump's? Because he did not get his own way here, did he? Well, it tells us that despite his overwhelming election win, securing both houses of Congress, having a conservative majority on the Supreme Court. But it won't be all plain sailing for Donald Trump. The last few days have revealed significant differences amongst Republicans, especially on this issue of a debt ceiling fiscal policy. They don't like borrowing. And the clear message to Mr. Trump is that he won't get it all his own way. Peter Bose, since Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022, there have been people in the US making donations to help Ukrainians. At the beginning, the support was overwhelming, but there are now signs that, well away from the front lines, war weariness could be setting in. The BBC's Christina Folk reports. In the city of Chernivtsi in West Ukraine, children open presents as their mothers watch. In the background, two young boys play with new football, while a girl in a knitted jumper smiles and holds up a doll with a big red bow in her hair. They have all lost their parent in the war. The presents were organized by a group of US Volunteers who have been collecting donations since the beginning of Russia's full scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Some of those donations are organized by the owner of Veselka, a restaurant in New York. Jason Burchard's grandparents fled Ukraine after the Second World War and became refugees in the US When Russia's invasion began, Veselka quickly became the hub for New York's Ukrainian diaspora to organize help. But as the war has dragged on, Jason says donations are starting to dry up. It's been a bit challenging, to be honest. They trickle in, but not, as you know, on the grand a scale as they once were. You know, as we enter year three, people are very war weary and are not sure of what the future holds. In Ukraine, Shanna Galeva is distributing presents and other vital items like medical supplies with her charity Bird of Light. Since the beginning of the war, she says the charity has raised $5.8 million, mainly focusing on supporting children who have lost parents in the war. These children writing letters to St. Nicholas, which is like a Ukrainian Santa Claus. Every single child writes, my dream is for the war to be over so that we can all live and play with our friends. And then they become practical and they ask for things from soccer uniforms to toys or makeup kids. Kira is one of the children that received a present this year. Her father went missing in the eastern Donbas region, which Russian forces are desperately trying to seize. When this gift came, I was very happy. I wanted it for a long time, but still, when I think about the way it came to me, the price I had to pay for it, I am ready to give everything back just to have my father returned. My dad was the one who would always give me advice, and now without him, I don't know what to do. It's not just the nations for Ukraine that are drying up. US Government support might also now be in doubt. Giuseppe Ito is from the German Kiel Institute for the World Economy. They track US Government assistance to Ukraine. The US in particular, is the most significant donor of aid to Ukraine since the beginning of the conflict. Incoming President Donald Trump has previously criticized the amount the US Is spending on military support for Ukraine. It's not clear if or by how much another support package will be approved. Ukrainians like Shanna now live with the uncertainty of new US Leadership. I believe in humanity, although it's getting harder and harder. But I want to believe that this year, 2025, is going to be the year when kindness and goodness will prevail. Shanna Galajeva from the charity Bird of Light, Ending that report by Christina Fulk. And that's all from us for now. But there'll be a new edition of the Global News News Podcast later. If you want to comment on this podcast or the topics covered in it, you can send us an email. The address is globalpodcastbc.co.uk you can also find us on X@global newspod. This edition was mixed by Paul Mason and the producer was Marion Straughan. The editor is Karen Martin. I'm Bernadette Keough. Until next time. Goodbye. Hello, I'm Katya Adler, host of the Global Story Podcast from the BBC. Each weekday we break down one big news story with fresh perspectives from journalists around the world. From artificial intelligence to divisive politics tearing our societies apart from the movements of money and markets to the human stories that touch our lives, we bring you in depth insights from across the BBC and beyond. Listen to the Global Story wherever you get your BBC podcasts.