NEW: Another Car Attack in Germany; One Dead

Yet another attack on a holiday crowd in Germany has taken place. Once again, someone drove a car into a festive pedestrian gathering, killing one person and injuring several others. German police are treating this as a “security situation,” but are keeping their mouths shut about the suspect and his/her condition. 

“It’s Carnival time in Germany,” the BBC notes, a lead-up to the Christian observation of Ash Wednesday. They also note that the previous attack in Magdeburg took place around the Christian holiday of Christmas:

Anyone else seeing a pattern? The New York Times does, cautiously:

There have been several recent attacks with vehicles in Germany. Two weeks ago, a 24-year-old Afghan man who was seeking asylum purposefully drove into a union demonstration in Munich, killing a 2-year-old and her mother and wounding several dozen others.

And in December, a Saudi doctor who had been living in Germany for more than a decade is suspected of having driven his car into a Christmas market in the central city of Magdeburg, killing six people and injuring hundreds of others.

Mannheim, which has a population of about 320,000, was in the headlines last year when an Afghan citizen living in Germany stabbed people at a far-right demonstration, killing a police officer who had rushed in to stop the attack.

Sky News describes the setting as a high-end shopping district in Mannheim, one that is “primarily pedestrianized.” The attack took place at lunchtime, when the streets would be the most crowded. Initial reports suggested that the vehicle was an SUV, but the investigators have cordoned off a damaged sedan instead. 

There may not be many confirmable details for a while, but we will keep a close eye on the story and update this post as necessary. Stay tuned, but given the string now of very similar attacks recently by radical Islamist ‘lone wolves,’ this may have some impact on the formation of a German government after the recent election. Immigration and assimilation issues had already been high priorities for German voters, and if this does turn out to be a terrorist attack, that will only grow more acute. 

Stay tuned. 

Note: The front-page image is from the earlier attack in Magdeburg in December.