Fatal Berlin Pride attack believed to be an act of Islamic extremist terror, German minister says

A van ramming and stabbing near Berlin’s Pride festival that left one person dead and many others injured is believed to have been an Islamic extremist terror attack, Germany’s interior minister said Sunday.

The suspect in Saturday night’s attack remains at large.

Authorities issued a wanted notice and warned people against approaching Abdul Ballout, 21, a German citizen with Lebanese roots, saying that he may be armed and dangerous.

Authorities said he is believed to have injured several people after he drove a van into a crowd at a park near the Pride festival’s closing party. He then allegedly attacked other people with a weapon, suspected to be a machete.

“Everything we see here points to us dealing with an Islamic terror attack,” Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt said.

Dobrindt put the total number of injured at 29.

German authorities have issued a wanted notice for Ballout, warning the public to avoid “direct contact” with the suspect and saying that he may be armed and dangerous.

Suspect allegedly has ties to Islamic extremism

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

Dobrindt said the suspect had come to authorities’ attention in the past because of numerous previous crimes, of which he didn’t give details, and also because of “radicalization and belonging to the Islamist scene.”

He said Ballout was born in Germany and that his mother was naturalized in 2002, three years before he was born.

Dobrindt said the suspect had been convicted in Berlin in the past, although he didn’t specify for what. He said that he had been given a suspended sentence of one year and 10 months.

Police conducted operations in the city as they searched for the suspect. Those included a search at an apartment in Berlin’s Schöneberg district in the early hours of Sunday, but police said they found no one there.