Extremism expert Hans-Jakob Schindler says, while the perpetrator of the German Christmas market attack had been uniquely radicalised, they have been becoming more common since COVID-19.

CEP Senior Advisor Ian Acheson writes: "At least two people have died and several injured after a car was driven down a busy shopping street yesterday in Mannheim, in western Germany. A 40-year-old man has been arrested.

It is not clear yet if this attack was ideologically motivated. But car attacks like this are becoming horrifyingly common in Germany. In Magdeburg and Munich either side of last Christmas a total of seven people were murdered in two separate car rammings. In both cases, the suspected attackers were foreign nationals."

CEP Senior Director Dr. Hans-Jakob Schindler interviewed: "The suspected driver in the Mannheim shooting rampage that left two people dead is a German from Ludwigshafen with a criminal record. The authorities are currently assuming that the 40-year-old has a mental illness. Terrorism expert Hans-Jakob Schindler with an assessment."

CEP Senior Director Dr. Hans-Jakob Schindler interviewed: "This morning we look at this crime - what we know and what is still unclear. We also ask Hans-Jakob Schindler, security expert at the International Centre for Counter Terrorism, why cars are so often used as weapons."

"Phoenix moderator Hans-Werner Fittkau speaks with Hans-Jakob Schindler, terrorism expert at the Counter Extremism Project, about today's incident in Mannheim on March 3, 2025."

“... Schindler is a terrorism expert and director of the Counter Extremism Project (CEP). " Cars were used on Christmas in Magdeburg and on New Year's Day in New Orleans. So it's not totally surprising that another car attack has been attempted," he says. According to the vice president of the Munich police headquarters, Christian Huber, the suspected attack in Munich happened like this: At around 10:30 a.m., a 24-year-old man drove behind the demonstration in his car, overtook a police car protecting the group, accelerated - and drove into the back of the demonstration.”