ఫాటల్ బెర్లిన్ ప్రైడ్ దాడి ఇస్లామిస్ట్ టెర్రర్ చర్య: జర్మన్ అధికారులు

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German police fanned out in pursuit of the suspect in a deadly van ramming at Berlin’s Pride festival on Saturday night that authorities called an Islamist terror attack.

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Speaking at a press conference, Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt identified the fugitive as German-born Abdul Ballout, 21, a citizen whose mother was naturalized in 2002 after immigrating from Lebanon.

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“Everything we see here points to us dealing with an Islamist terror attack,” Dobrindt said.

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Chancellor Friedrich Merz described the incident as “an attack on our society” and said those responsible would be pursued “with the utmost severity.”

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“We will not allow that this poison — that terrorism and this poison — against our freedom takes hold further in our society,” Merz said before a memorial service in Berlin on Sunday. “We will defend the freedom, openness and liberality of our life and our society with everything we have.”

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Ballout is alleged to have driven a white van into a crowd of people in Berlin’s Tiergarten park, on the sidelines of the city’s pride celebration late Saturday night, killing a woman and injuring at least 29 people. Ballout is alleged to have attacked additional people with a machete.

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“It was a horrific scene,” Dobrindt said, noting that the van left multiple injured people scattered in its wake along a pedestrian path through the park. Others at the scene immediately administered first aid, he said, followed shortly thereafter by mounted police officers who were already in the vicinity.

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One or more people are believed to have fled the vehicle, police said, adding that the suspect may be armed and dangerous, and that members of the public should avoid “direct contact.” There’s been no specific mention of a potential accomplice to Ballout.

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The search is continuing across Berlin as well as at airports and Germany’s borders, Dobrindt said, adding that Ballout was known to have been radicalized and had committed previous crimes. He’d been on probation with a suspended sentence of one year and 10 months; prosecutors had appealed the suspension, Dobrindt said. The investigation into Saturday’s attack will be transferred to the federal level, he said.

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Heavily armed police were seen at the Anhalter Bahnhof subway station, Bild reported. Dozens of officers also searched the suspect’s apartment in the Tiergarten district, a short distance from the attack site, the newspaper said. Police had earlier searched an apartment in the city’s Schöneberg district.

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At the memorial service Sunday afternoon at St. Mary’s Church in central Berlin, a Pride flag was draped at the front of the church and participants lit candles. A representative of Berlin’s Muslim community in Berlin made remarks, saying that universal values of human life hold true across religions.