Far-right in Germany goes into damage control mode after car-ramming attack

The suspect in Germany's deadly car-ramming attack on a Christmas market held strongly anti-Islam views and was angry with Germany's migrant and asylum policy, officials said, prompting the far-right to go into damage control mode.

Interior Minister Nancy Fraser said on Saturday he held "Islamophobic" views.

Initially, the attack drew comparisons on social media to an immigrant's deadly attack on a Berlin Christmas market in 2016.

Later, it emerged that the Saudi suspect, a psychiatrist who had lived in Germany for 18 years, had criticised Islam and expressed sympathy for the far right in past social media posts.

This prompted damage control by the far-right.

Martin Sellner, an Austrian popular with Germany's far-right, posted on social media that the suspect's motives "seemed to have been complex", adding that the suspect "hated Islam, but he hated the Germans more".

'Sad and shocked'

The leader of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), Alice Weidel, wrote on X: "When will this madness stop?"

"What happened today affects a lot of people. It affects us a lot," Fael Kelion, a 27-year-old Cameroonian living in the city, told the AFP news agency.

"I think that since (the suspect) is a foreigner, the population will be unhappy, less welcoming."

Michael Raarig, 67 and an engineer, said: "I am sad, I am shocked. I never would have believed this could happen here in an East German provincial town."

He added that he believed the attack "will play into the hands of the AfD", which has had its strongest support in the formerly communist eastern Germany.

The car-ramming attack killed five people and left over 200 injured.

Security was stepped up Saturday at Christmas markets elsewhere in Germany, with more police seen in Hamburg, Leipzig and other cities.