The Ansbach bomber was just the latest in a spate of German incidents in the past month. In Wuerzburg, a 17-year-old, who identified himself as an Afghan when he registered as a refugee, rampaged through a train with a knife and an axe, severely wounding several people and reportedly shouting “Allahu akbar.” In Munich, a German-Iranian teenager went on a shooting rampage, killing nine people and himself. In Reutlingen, a pregnant Polish woman was hacked to death by a 21-year-old Syrian refugee.
The Munich killer, who was obsessed with mass shootings, seems to have been more inspired by right-wing fascists than by radical Islam. Some of the attackers had a history of mental problems. But frightened citizens don’t really care about the details. What they see is young Muslim men on the rampage, and authorities who seem helpless and incompetent. The French are demanding to know why two known terror risks were on the loose. Germans want to know why criminals and failed refugee claimants aren’t being forcibly deported.
Read it all (my emphasis).
(Globe and Mail) Margaret Wente–A darkness over Europe
The Ansbach bomber was just the latest in a spate of German incidents in the past month. In Wuerzburg, a 17-year-old, who identified himself as an Afghan when he registered as a refugee, rampaged through a train with a knife and an axe, severely wounding several people and reportedly shouting “Allahu akbar.” In Munich, a German-Iranian teenager went on a shooting rampage, killing nine people and himself. In Reutlingen, a pregnant Polish woman was hacked to death by a 21-year-old Syrian refugee.
The Munich killer, who was obsessed with mass shootings, seems to have been more inspired by right-wing fascists than by radical Islam. Some of the attackers had a history of mental problems. But frightened citizens don’t really care about the details. What they see is young Muslim men on the rampage, and authorities who seem helpless and incompetent. The French are demanding to know why two known terror risks were on the loose. Germans want to know why criminals and failed refugee claimants aren’t being forcibly deported.
Read it all (my emphasis).