Berlin Pride Attack Suspect, 21, Allegedly Sought to Join Islamic State

According to German media reports, the suspect in the Berlin Pride attack, who remains on the run, had previously attempted to align himself with the Islamic State group.  

Authorities have initiated a widespread manhunt for the 21-year-old suspect, Abdul B, following a violent incident where a van was driven into a crowd, resulting in one fatality and injuring 29 individuals.  

Abdul B is described as having a slim build, standing about 6 feet 3 inches tall, with black hair. At the time of his last sighting, he was dressed in a black hoodie and white trousers. The police have cautioned the public against approaching him, as he could be armed and poses a significant danger.

Reports from police sources indicate that Abdul B, who holds German citizenship, traveled to Lebanon in 2025 in a failed bid to join the Islamic State. 

After being held in pre-trial detention until May 2026, he was mandated to participate in a de-radicalization program. 

In an update this afternoon, Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt confirmed the number of people injured had risen from 16 to 29. 

He said ‘everything we are seeing here indicates that we have experienced an Islamist attack’. 

Mr Dobrindt said the suspect ‘rammed into a crowd with a car’ and ‘then attacked the crowd with some type of blade, it might have been a machete, and also severely injured those people’. 

The minister said: ‘We cannot rule out the possibility that further terrorist attacks might take place.’ 

Mr Dobrindt added that Abdul B was born in Germany in 2005 and has a Lebanese background. His mother became a naturalised German citizen in 2002.

This May, he was convicted in Germany of ‘preparing a serious act of subversive violence,’ the papers report, but according to Spiegel he received a suspended sentence.

According to Bild, he was arrested in Lebanon while attempting to join IS and sent back to Germany as he is a German citizen.

Spiegel reported that a few weeks ago there was a tip-off that Abdul B. had posted a photo online posing with a weapon.

However, a search of his apartment turned up only a toy replica. Police had been deployed to the suspect’s alleged address, around one kilometre south of the scene of the attack.

Berlin’s mayor, Kai Wegner, said: ‘This was an attack on all of us. It was an attack on our way of life and coexistence… and our way of life. Ladies and gentlemen, this must end. We must be very clear about this.’ 

Mayor Wegner, who attended the event, said the city ‘was showing its diversity’ with a colourful celebration but that it ‘became dark after 10 pm – very dark’. 

Police and prosecutors said the suspect is believed to have injured several people with a moving vehicle before one or more people left the van. 

Several people were also apparently stabbed, they added.

While police confirmed that a woman had been killed, Berlin’s fire department spokesperson Dominik Pretz told reporters that, among the people injured in the attack, three have life-threatening injuries.

Providing a breakdown, Pretz said eight people have been seriously injured and five have minor injuries.

Germany’s largest hospital, the Charite, said it treated eight people injured in the attack. Four have since been discharged, while the remaining four are being cared for in intensive care. 

The hospital said none of those patients are in a critical condition.

Nigel Farage used the Berlin Pride van attack to predict the end of what he called a ‘strange left-wing alliance between Islamists and the LGBT community’ in the UK.

The Reform UK leader wrote on X: ‘Horrendous attack in Berlin last night.

‘The strange left wing alliance between Islamists and the LGBT community in this country cannot last.’

Pretz also said that 30 people who had been in the area at the time of the attack had been left ‘shaken’.

Police had said earlier that they had identified a suspect who has ties to Islamic groups in the German capital.

‘The suspect is known to police. He is known to us as a member of Islamic circles here in Berlin, and our search for this person is proceeding at full speed,’ police spokesperson Florian Nath said.

Chancellor Friedrich Merz described the incident late Saturday evening as ‘an attack on our society’.

‘What an abhorrent act in Berlin,’ Merz wrote in a post on X. He added that Germany loves freedom, ‘and we will preserve and defend that’. 

The attack unfolded near the city’s annual Pride celebrations on Saturday evening, triggering a major emergency response and prompting authorities to launch a large-scale manhunt.

Police have not yet disclosed a motive but are investigating the incident as a suspected extremist attack.

Authorities continue to appeal for witnesses and are urging anyone with information about the suspect’s whereabouts to contact police immediately while avoiding any direct confrontation.

Nath added that investigators have no information on ‘his specific motives’.

Germany’s federal prosecutor’s office is working with investigators in Berlin regarding the attack on the city’s Pride parade, a spokesperson of the body told the German Press Agency.

Germany’s top prosecution authority usually takes over investigations when terrorism is involved, though they have not yet officially assumed the case so far.

According to police, a white van drove into the Tiergarten park around 10pm and hit several people before colliding with a tree. 

The closing party at the Pride festival, known as Christopher Street Day, was going on nearby at the time, following a parade with some 80 trucks that had made its way through downtown Berlin earlier in the day.

Julian Miethig, who had attended the LGBTQ+ party earlier, said he had just wanted to go to an afterparty when he heard from a friend that ‘something bad happened’.

He said he went to Tiergarten and was shocked that something like this could have happened at Berlin’s Pride celebrations. ‘It’s a dark day for the community,’ he added.

Christian Gaebler, Berlin’s Senator for Urban Development, has warned against speculating about the incident.

He insisted it was too early to say if there was a motive behind the crash. ‘It didn’t even happen at the event itself, but actually in the Tiergarten,’ he said.

The Pride event next to the Brandenburg Gate was called off around 10:15pm and a band’s performance on stage was interrupted. 

Organisers of the Christopher Street Day pride celebrations in Berlin have cancelled a further two events following the attack.

Hundreds of thousands of people had come to Berlin to be at one of Europe’s largest LGBTQ+ celebrations on Saturday, although it’s unclear how many were still at the festival by late evening. 

The word ‘Evacuation’ was displayed in bright colours on a large screen near the Brandenburg Gate, as people were urged to go home and to avoid taking the route through the Tiergarten park, with an Instagram post instructing them to leave in an ‘orderly manner’.

‘Please avoid the Victory Column and the Tiergarten. Leave the area in the direction of the main train station,’ the post read.

Earlier in the day, revellers celebrated peacefully, dancing and cheering as they watched the floats parade through the city.