A driver crashed a car into a labor union demonstration in central Munich on Thursday, injuring 30 people, including children, in what authorities suspect was an attack, The Associated Press reported. The suspect, an Afghan asylum-seeker, was arrested at the scene. According to police, members of the service workers’ union ver.di were marching along a street at around 10:30 a.m. local time, when the suspect’s Mini Cooper overtook a police vehicle monitoring the demonstration, accelerated, and struck the back of the group. Deputy police chief Christian Huber stated that officers fired a shot at the vehicle before arresting the suspect. Some of the victims suffered serious injuries. Investigators examined the car, which had a damaged front and shattered windshield, before it was towed away. Debris, including shoes, was scattered at the scene. Authorities identified the suspect as a 24-year-old Afghan asylum-seeker. Bavaria’s state interior minister, Joachim Herrmann, noted that officials believe the protest was randomly targeted. Georg Eisenreich, Bavaria’s justice minister, said a special prosecutors’ unit that investigates extremism and terror is handling the case. Thursday’s incident follows a series of violent attacks in Germany. Three weeks ago, a knife attack in Aschaffenburg , also in Bavaria, left a two-year-old boy and a man dead. The suspect in that case was an Afghan whose asylum request had been rejected, escalating migration debates in Germany’s election campaign. Other recent attacks include knife incidents in Mannheim and Solingen last year, both involving Afghan and Syrian immigrants. In the latter case, the attacker was a rejected asylum-seeker who was supposed to leave the country. Additionally, in December, a Saudi doctor carried out a car ramming at a Christmas market in Magdeburg, after having drawn attention from local authorities. Germany has been on high alert for possible Islamist attacks for several years and especially since the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war on October 7 of last year. The country's domestic intelligence chief warned that the risk of such assaults is "real and higher than it has been for a long time". Related articles: Iran summons European envoys over UN nuclear meeting German intelligence had evidence COVID leaked from Wuhan lab Is Russia planning to attack another European country? France, Germany, Italy, and UK back Arab Gaza plan Security in Munich is expected to be heightened in the coming days as the city prepares to host the Munich Security Conference, an annual international gathering on foreign and security policy, beginning Friday. While authorities do not currently believe Thursday’s attack was linked to the conference, Herrmann stated that investigators are still working to determine the suspect’s motive.
