At Least 28 are Hurt as Driver Plows into Demonstration in Germany

Emergency services attend the scene of an accident after a driver hit a group of people in Munich, Germany, Thursday Feb. 13, 2025. (Christoph Trost/dpa via AP)
Emergency services attend the scene of an accident after a driver hit a group of people in Munich, Germany, Thursday Feb. 13, 2025. (Christoph Trost/dpa via AP)
TT

At Least 28 are Hurt as Driver Plows into Demonstration in Germany

Emergency services attend the scene of an accident after a driver hit a group of people in Munich, Germany, Thursday Feb. 13, 2025. (Christoph Trost/dpa via AP)
Emergency services attend the scene of an accident after a driver hit a group of people in Munich, Germany, Thursday Feb. 13, 2025. (Christoph Trost/dpa via AP)

A driver drove a car into a union demonstration in central Munich on Thursday, injuring at least 28 people including children, authorities said. Officials said it was believed to be an attack.

The suspect, an Afghan asylum-seeker, was arrested. The incident follows a series of attacks involving immigrants in recent months that have pushed migration to the forefront of the campaign for Germany’s Feb. 23 election.

Participants in a demonstration by the service workers’ union ver.di were walking along a street at about 10:30 a.m. when the car overtook a police vehicle following the gathering, accelerated and plowed into the back of the group, police said, The AP reported.

Officers arrested the suspect after firing a shot at the car, deputy police chief Christian Huber said. He added that at least 28 people were believed to be injured, some of them seriously. A damaged Mini was seen at the scene, along with debris including shoes.

The suspect was a 24-year-old Afghan asylum-seeker, Huber said. Bavaria’s state interior minister, Joachim Herrmann, said he was known to authorities in connection with theft and drug offenses, but didn't give further details. The state’s justice minister, Georg Eisenreich, said a prosecutors’ department that investigates extremism and terror was looking into the case.

“It is simply terrible,” Bavarian governor Markus Söder told reporters at the scene. “We feel with the victims, we are praying for the victims — we hope very much that they all make it.”

“It is suspected to be an attack — a lot points to that," Söder added.

Mayor Dieter Reiter said he was “deeply shocked” by the incident. He said that children were among those injured.

The Munich incident comes three weeks after a two-year-old boy and a man were killed in a knife attack in Aschaffenburg, also in Bavaria. An Afghan whose asylum application was rejected was the suspect in that attack, which propelled migration to the center of the German election campaign.

The Aschaffenburg attack followed knife attacks in Mannheim and in Solingen last year in which the suspects were immigrants from Afghanistan and Syria, respectively — in the latter case, also a rejected asylum-seeker who was supposed to have left the country.

In the December Christmas market car ramming in Magdeburg, the suspect was a Saudi doctor who previously had come to various regional authorities’ attention.

Germany's main opposition conservative bloc, in which Söder is a prominent figure, has demanded a tougher approach to irregular migration, calling for many more people to be turned back at the country's borders and for an increase in deportations. Curbing migration is also a core issue for the far-right Alternative for Germany, which polls put in second place behind the conservatives.

“This is more evidence that we can't go from attack to attack and show dismay, thank police for their deployment," Söder said. “We actually have to change something. This is not the first such act; so, we feel with the people today, but at the same time we are determined that something must change in Germany, and quickly.”

Center-left Chancellor Olaf Scholz's government said it already has done a lot to reduce irregular migration, and that the opposition's plans are incompatible with German and European Union law.

Scholz described the latest incident as “really terrible.”

“Anyone who commits crimes in Germany will not just be punished severely and have to go to prison, but must expect that he cannot continue his stay in Germany — and that also goes for countries that it is very difficult to send people back to,” he said.

The chancellor noted that his government deported convicted criminals to Afghanistan on a flight in August and is working to do so again — “and not just once, but continually.”

The Bavarian capital will see heavy security in the coming days because the three-day Munich Security Conference, an annual gathering of international foreign and security policy officials, opens on Friday.

Herrmann said authorities do not believe the car ramming was connected to the conference, but they still need to determine the motive.



US Slaps Iran-related Sanctions on Oil Tankers, China ‘Teapot' Refinery

The Liberian-flagged tanker Ice Energy, chartered by the US government, takes Iranian oil from Iranian-flagged Lana (formerly Pegas) as part of a civil forfeiture action off the shore of Karystos, on the Island of Evia, Greece, May 26, 2022. REUTERS/Costas Baltas/File Photo
The Liberian-flagged tanker Ice Energy, chartered by the US government, takes Iranian oil from Iranian-flagged Lana (formerly Pegas) as part of a civil forfeiture action off the shore of Karystos, on the Island of Evia, Greece, May 26, 2022. REUTERS/Costas Baltas/File Photo
TT

US Slaps Iran-related Sanctions on Oil Tankers, China ‘Teapot' Refinery

The Liberian-flagged tanker Ice Energy, chartered by the US government, takes Iranian oil from Iranian-flagged Lana (formerly Pegas) as part of a civil forfeiture action off the shore of Karystos, on the Island of Evia, Greece, May 26, 2022. REUTERS/Costas Baltas/File Photo
The Liberian-flagged tanker Ice Energy, chartered by the US government, takes Iranian oil from Iranian-flagged Lana (formerly Pegas) as part of a civil forfeiture action off the shore of Karystos, on the Island of Evia, Greece, May 26, 2022. REUTERS/Costas Baltas/File Photo

The US on Thursday issued new Iran-related sanctions, targeting entities including for the first time a Chinese "teapot", or independent refinery, and vessels that supplied crude oil to such processing plants.
It was Washington's fourth round of sanctions on Iran's oil sales since President Donald Trump said in February he was re-imposing a "maximum pressure" campaign including efforts to drive down the country's exports to zero. Trump aims to stop Tehran from obtaining a nuclear weapon and funding militant groups.

The refinery Treasury targeted for sanctions is China-based Shandong Shouguang Luqing Petrochemical Co., Ltd.
"So-called 'teapot' refinery purchases of Iranian oil provide the primary economic lifeline for the Iranian regime, the world’s leading state sponsor of terror and the primary backer of the murderous Houthis in Yemen," US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in a post on X.

State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce said the refinery bought oil from vessels linked to Yemen's Iran-aligned Houthis, which the US designated this month as a Foreign Terrorist Organization, and the US-designated Iranian Ministry of Defense of Armed Forces Logistics.

Treasury also imposed sanctions on 12 entities, and identified eight vessels as blocked property it said were responsible for shipping millions of barrels of Iranian oil to China. These vessels are part of Iran’s “shadow fleet” of tankers that supply the private refineries.
It also placed Wang Xueqing, who it said is linked to the refinery, on the specially designated nationals, or SDN, list. Americans are prohibited from doing business with people placed on that list, and their US assets are blocked.
The vessels Treasury blocked included Panama-flagged Aurora Riley and the Catalina, and the Barbados-flagged Brava Lake.
The State Department said it was imposing sanctions on an oil terminal in China called Huaying Huizhou Daya Bay Petrochemical Terminal Storage, for buying and storing Iranian crude oil from a sanctioned vessel.