German police seem to know a great deal already about the man who drove his car into a Pride march in Berlin over the weekend, killing one woman and injuring many more.
Abdul Ballout, 21, was a German citizen who had travelled to Lebanon in 2025 in an unsuccessful attempt to join the Islamic State (IS) terrorist group. He had been in pre-trial detention until May 2026, and was ordered to take part in a de-radicalisation programme. After his attack, Ballout was traced but was shot and killed after attacking police officers with a knife.
If you want to join an Islamist terrorist sect like IS, that makes you an Islamist, a Muslim who has adopted a particularly vile political version of Islam that commits its followers to the establishment – by force if necessary – of a worldwide "caliphate" under sharia law.
Not every Muslim is an Islamist, but every Islamist is a Muslim. The vast majority of ordinary British Muslims want nothing to do with their terrorist-supporting co-religionists; in many cases it is the tyranny and cruelty of Islamism that forced them to seek a new life here in the first place.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member