German authorities are searching this Sunday for a 21-year-old man and suspected Islamist suspected of having driven a vehicle into the Berlin gay pride crowd the previous evening, leaving one dead and around thirty injured.
• Also read: Pride parade in Germany: one dead and 16 injured, hit by a vehicle
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“Everything we see here indicates that we are dealing with an Islamist terrorist attack,” German Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt said on Sunday at the scene of the attack, increasing the number of victims with 29 injured, compared to 16 previously.
The suspect on the run, whose name the minister revealed, Abdul Ballout, could be armed and dangerous, according to police.
“A German citizen of Lebanese origin”, Abdul Ballout “was noted for a high number of offenses, radicalization, and his membership in the Islamist milieu”, added the minister.
According to the magazine’s sites The mirror and everyday BildAbdul Ballout had tried to join the jihadist group Islamic State in Syria in 2025 but was arrested in Lebanon.
He was sent back to Germany, where he was sentenced in 2026, in another case according to these media, for “preparing a serious act of violence endangering the security of the State”.
The police were also deployed on Sunday in a building located one kilometer from the scene of the attack, noted an AFP photographer. According to Bild, this is where the suspect lived.
A couple embrace at a makeshift memorial site for the victims on July 26, 2026, near the scene in Berlin’s Tiergarten park where a car was driven into people the previous evening, killing one person and injuring 16 others on the sidelines of the Christopher Street Day (CSD) parade.
AFP
The attack took place on Saturday around 4:00 p.m. in the Tiergarten park, in the center of Berlin and a few hundred meters from the Brandenburg Gate, the main gathering place on the evening of the pride march, called Christopher Street Day (CSD) in Germany, one of the largest “gay pride” in Europe.
The incident cut short what had been a day of celebration for hundreds of thousands of people.
«Abominable act»
According to police, a white vehicle drove into passers-by before hitting a tree.
The suspect “then rushed at other passers-by, armed with a bladed weapon, a blunt weapon, probably a machete, and also seriously injured them,” described Alexander Dobrindt.
The vehicle used during the attack is a Citroën minivan and Spacetourer model, registered in Berlin. It was visible on the scene on Sunday, heavily damaged by the impact against a tree.
According to the description given by police, Abdul Ballout, 21, is slim, approximately 6 feet tall, with black hair and wearing a black hooded sweatshirt and white pants.
A call for witnesses was issued accompanied by a photo to obtain information to locate him.
A passerby writes his thoughts on a paper placed on a makeshift memorial for the victims, July 26, 2026, near the site of Tiergarten park in Berlin, where a car had been thrown into people the day before, killing one person and injuring 16 others on the sidelines of the Christopher Street Day (CSD) parade.
AFP
German and foreign politicians were quick to respond.
Chancellor Friedrich Merz declared at dawn on Sunday that he and Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt were being kept informed of the progress of the investigation and pledged to bring those responsible for this “abominable act” to justice.
President Frank-Walter Steinmeier said he was “distraught and outraged” by this attack on “our open society”.
Messages of solidarity also poured in from abroad, with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen saying the CSD “embodies freedom, dignity and equal rights, the founding values of the EU”.
Invited by members of Berlin’s LGBTQ community to a vigil in front of the Brandenburg Gate early Sunday afternoon, the public observed a minute of silence. The place was full.
Bad memories
This attack revived the memory of a series of similar acts which shook Germany in recent years and fueled the debate on immigration, several of the perpetrators being of foreign origin.
The deadliest attack in recent years was that perpetrated in December 2016 on a Christmas market in Berlin by a Tunisian with jihadist motivations. It left 13 dead.
A bouquet of flowers is displayed on July 26, 2026 in front of the famous Brandenburg Gate, on the occasion of a “community mourning” organized one day after the car-ramming attack perpetrated against people on the sidelines of the Christopher Street Day (CSD) parade in Berlin, on the evening of July 25, 2026, which left one dead and sixteen injured in the Tiergarten park.
AFP
The period leading up to last year’s legislative elections was marked by a wave of attacks in public places, including by Islamist attackers.
These attacks gave rise to the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, which has become the leading opposition force and which is now even ahead of Mr. Merz’s right in voting intentions.
On Sunday, an AfD MP, Martin Hess, estimated on the parliamentary group’s website that the attack on the pride parade “reveals once again the total failure of those responsible in terms of security”.
“If an Islamist individual considered dangerous and known to the police was able to commit such an act, we must establish exhaustively why he could still move freely,” he added.
Questioned by AFP on the sidelines of the vigil, Luka, a 23-year-old student, said she feared that the attack would be “instrumentalized”.
Met in the Tiergarten where he came to pay tribute to the victims, Armin Dünhölter, 49, a drag queen who has been officiating “for years” at pride parades in major German cities, says he is “still in shock”.
“With the incidents of recent years, we have obviously often said to ourselves that, sooner or later, one of our demonstrations could be targeted.”
