Robert Spencer: Another Non-Terrorist Vehicular Attack in Germany

The Mailonline reported Saturday that “a man has shot himself dead after ploughing a minibus into a crowd of people in the German city of Münster, killing three people and leaving 20 injured. Six people are in critical condition and dozens more are injured after the vehicle was driven at high speed towards families outside a traditional German restaurant in the university town, 300 miles west of Berlin.” But don’t be concerned: authorities assure us it wasn’t terrorism.

Yet in reality, authorities in Germany and all over the West are so dishonest about jihad attacks these days that it is impossible to take what they say at face value. Their accounts warrant close examination.

The fact that “six people are in critical condition and dozens more are injured after the vehicle was driven at high speed towards families outside a traditional German restaurant” certainly fits the jihadi MO, and the fact that the target was people at a “traditional German restaurant” only reinforces that impression. However, the Mailonline report adds:

“Terrified diners watched as the driver shot and killed himself inside the vehicle….”

That does not fit the jihadi MO. Jihadis may blow up explosives knowing that they’ll be killed in the process, but they do not generally kill themselves after an operation is completed. This makes it likely that this was not a jihad attack, if this account is accurate. But there are other elements of this story that raise questions:

“He is believed to be a middle-aged German man with ‘psychological problems’ and no links to any terrorist organisations.”

When authorities say that he is a “middle-aged German man,” they’re semaphoring that he is not a Muslim. When the establishment media gives the nationality of an unnamed attacker and it’s a traditionally non-Muslim country, we are meant to understand that the attacker is non-Muslim, although interestingly enough, the establishment media also does just the opposite, referring to Muslims, including jihadis, by nationalities they have adopted or pretended to adopt, or their location, despite the fact that jihadis have nothing but disdain for the nation-states of the Infidels, even when they settle in them. Smail Ayad, who murdered two people while screaming “Allahu akbar,” is described as a “Frenchman,” and the BBC recently referred to a Muslim rape gang as “Oxford men.”

In any case, this fellow had “psychological problems,” but there are numerous examples of authorities ascribing what are obvious jihad attacks to “mental illness.” Here are just a few. Also, it is noteworthy that people have always had “psychological problems,” but only lately do they manifest themselves as drivers plowing into crowds of pedestrians. At very least, this man is an imitator of jihadis.

And how did the police find out so quickly that he has “psychological problems”? Did the driver tell them so before he killed himself? Do they have a readily searchable database of everyone who is receiving psychiatric care in Germany?

He also had “no links to any terrorist organisations,” which means he wasn’t carrying an al-Qaeda or ISIS membership card, but authorities routinely ignore the possibility that a Muslim might have been inspired to do violence to unbelievers by calls to do so from al-Qaeda or ISIS, without having any organizational link to a jihad terror group.

“Police are currently searching the driver’s apartment for explosives and also investigating reports that two other people were seen fleeing the van after the crash.”

OK, so he had psychological problems but this wasn’t apparently an instance of him snapping and plowing his car into the pedestrians on the spur of the moment. He was, or might have been, sane enough to amass explosives. And possibly to have had two accomplices.

The plot thickens. What sort of insane person does such a thing? If there were three attackers, did all three have psychological problems?

So in the end, as far as we know now, this is likely not a jihad attack, but given the habitual dishonesty of authorities all over the West, we cannot be entirely sure.

Robert Spencer is the director of Jihad Watch and author of the New York Times bestsellers The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades) and The Truth About Muhammad. His new book is Confessions of an Islamophobe. Follow him on Twitter here. Like him on Facebook here.