Twenty-four hours after the terror attack in the German city of Solingen, which claimed three lives on Friday evening, the suspected perpetrator turned himself in. The suspect is a 26-year-old Syrian man who approached the police on Sunday night. The man has confessed, the Düsseldorf police announced early Sunday morning.
The weekend in Solingen began with anticipation. The large city, part of the Düsseldorf administrative district, was set to celebrate its 650th anniversary. Like most major German cities, Solingen has been significantly influenced by immigration. The city festival was therefore themed as the “Festival of Diversity.”
Then events took a tragic turn: On Friday evening, three people were killed in a terror attack. Eight others were seriously injured. On Saturday, Amak, the media arm of the terrorist organization Islamic State, claimed that the attacker was an IS member and that the attack was carried out as “revenge for Muslims in Palestine and elsewhere.” The attack was targeted at a “group of Christians.”
The news magazine “Spiegel” reported that the man, originally from the Syrian city of Deir al-Zur, arrived in Germany at the end of December 2022 and applied for asylum. He had been living in a refugee shelter in Solingen. According to a witness, the attacker allegedly shouted “Allahu akbar” during the attack. Initial investigations suggest that the suspect should have been deported long ago. Under the so-called Dublin Rules of the European asylum system, Bulgaria would have been responsible for him. The deportation failed because the Syrian man was not found in his refugee accommodation on the day of the planned deportation and subsequently went into hiding. Apparently, there was no arrest warrant issued for him. At the end of 2023, Germany granted him subsidiary protection. The police currently believe he acted alone. Based on video analysis, the suspect is said to have deliberately stabbed his victims in the neck before escaping in the ensuing chaos. The suspected weapon, apparently a kitchen knife from a knife block, has been secured by the police.
An arrest warrant has since been issued against the alleged attacker. He is charged with membership in a terrorist organization, triple murder, attempted murder, and causing grievous bodily harm in eight other cases. The investigation has been taken over by the Federal Prosecutor’s Office.
The Federal Prosecutor’s Office accuses the man of joining the “Islamic State” (IS). What specific evidence the intelligence services have is currently not publicly known. The IS claimed responsibility for the attack and on Sunday released a roughly one-minute video of a masked man who is alleged to be the attacker. In the video, he pledges allegiance to the leader of IS in Arabic and says that his attack is retaliation for the killing of Muslims in Syria, Iraq, and Bosnia. He also addresses his parents, stating that his attack is an act of revenge for the “people in Palestine” who suffer massacres supported by “Zionists.” Security authorities are currently examining the authenticity of the video.
If the video is confirmed as authentic, it would fit the IS pattern—both in the execution of the attack and its broader strategy. Recently, IS has increasingly threatened attacks in the West in both official and unofficial propaganda. The German domestic intelligence service (Verfassungsschutz) observes that the release of such threats is often linked to emotionally charged events, particularly the Hamas attack on Israel in October. Since then, the amount of propaganda on social networks has exploded. It seems likely, then, that the man in the video specifically refers to the Palestinians, as such a video serves as propaganda to incite other young men. The current Verfassungsschutz report also states that Germany, due to its economic strength and prominent position within the EU as one of the leading nations in the “crusader alliance,” is seen as a representative of Western values. An attack in Germany, according to the strongest IS regional branch ISPK, would also enhance its reputation among its supporters, according to the Verfassungsschutz.
The European Football Championship in Germany and the Olympic Games in Paris took place peacefully, thanks in part to increased security measures in the cities and enhanced border protection. But since the attack on the Crocus City Hall near Moscow in March, where more than 140 people were killed, the systematic nature of these attacks has become evident. Behind the mass murder in Moscow was a regional branch of the Islamic State, the Islamic State Khorasan Province (IS-K). The organization declared at the time that it also intended to carry out attacks in Europe. In June, a 25-year-old Afghan man attacked a police officer and a well-known critic of Islam in Mannheim. The perpetrator had been radicalized online. Since 2017, IS has been calling on its sympathizers abroad to stab non-believers. At that time, the IS leadership in Iraq and Syria realized that they could no longer win militarily. They then changed their strategy and have since urged their followers to kill “non-believers.”
Whether the terrorist from Solingen joined IS—and if so, whether in Syria or only in Germany—or acted as a lone wolf under the influence of Islamist propaganda is still unclear. In either case, he would have been advised to target a “soft target.” A city festival, where people are unaware, perhaps standing in front of a stage with their backs to a potential attacker, and where screams might not be heard immediately due to the loudness, fits this description. The choice of a knife as a weapon was also logical. Islamist propaganda encourages men to murder with knives; they are easy to obtain and conceal. There are also instructions on the right type of blade and suitable stabbing techniques to inflict maximum damage.
The fact that the suspected attacker from Solingen turned himself in to the police initially seems untypical for a terrorist. In the past, suicide attacks were more common. However, the case of Anis Amri, who carried out the attack on Berlin’s Breitscheidplatz, also seemed unusual at the time: Amri fled after the attack and was only shot several days later during a police check in Italy. On the same day, IS released a video claiming responsibility for Amri’s actions. In the case of Solingen, the video was also released only after Issa Al H. was in custody. The fact that he prefers imprisonment to death does not necessarily contradict his membership in IS. German security authorities are also considering the possibility that they are dealing with a “new generation of perpetrators.”
The war in the Middle East, which began on October 7 with Hamas’s attack on Israeli civilians, has further fueled Islamist-motivated terrorism. At the beginning of the year, the Islamic State launched a new propaganda campaign, calling for attacks in Europe. This campaign is being amplified through social networks. Europol, the EU’s law enforcement agency, has long warned of attacks by lone wolves. Since the beginning of 2024, around 30 people have been arrested across Europe—more cases than in the entire year of 2023. Most of these are young people, many of whom are minors. The increased threat from young perpetrators is also evident in the foiled attack on concerts by American superstar Taylor Swift. The 19-year-old main suspect, an Austrian of North Macedonian descent, said during his arrest that he had planned to “kill himself and a large crowd today or tomorrow.” Authorities in Moscow and Vienna were warned. In Solingen, there were no apparent signs of an attack—according to current knowledge. Whether the attacker at the city festival was also a “lone wolf” or if he received attack training remains to be seen.
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