The Lebanese-German ISIS-linked attacker who drove a vehicle into a Pride parade in Berlin, killing one person and injuring 29 others, has been shot dead by police.
Abdul Ballout drove a van into crowds gathered for the city’s annual Christopher Street Day Pride parade on Saturday.
German media reported on Sunday that the 21-year-old was killed during a police operation at a garden complex in Spandau, in western Berlin.
Police said they believe he “rushed towards our emergency forces with a stabbing weapon,” prompting officers from Berlin’s SEK, or Special Operations Command, to open fire.
A police spokesman said the suspect died at the scene “despite immediate resuscitation measures.”
Authorities said they are “not currently looking for others” in connection with the attack.
Officials had mounted a large-scale manhunt for Ballout, who had previously attempted to join the Islamic State group.
Police sources cited by German media said Abdul B, a German citizen, travelled to Lebanon in 2025 in an unsuccessful bid to join IS.
Abdul Ballout has been shot and killed, according to German media. It comes after he rammed a van into a crowd at Berlin’s annual Christopher Street Day Pride parade on Saturday
Police officers with automatic weapons are seen in an allotment complex in the western Spandau district of Berlin on Sunday
German media reported on Sunday that the 21-year-old had been shot and killed during a police operation at the complex
He had been in pre-trial detention until May 2026, and was ordered to take part in a de-radicalisation programme.
In an update this afternoon, Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt confirmed the number of people injured had risen from 16 to 29, three of whom have suffered life-threatening injuries.
He said ‘everything we are seeing here indicates that we have experienced an Islamist attack’.
Mr Dobrindt said the suspect ‘rammed into a crowd with a car’ and ‘then attacked the crowd with some type of blade, it might have been a machete, and also severely injured those people’.
The minister said: ‘We cannot rule out the possibility that further terrorist attacks might take place.’
Mr Dobrindt added that Abdul B was born in Germany in 2005 and has a Lebanese background. His mother became a naturalised German citizen in 2002.
This May, he was convicted in Germany of ‘preparing a serious act of subversive violence,’ the papers report, but according to Spiegel news magazine, Abdul B received a suspended sentence.
According to Bild newspaper, he was arrested in Lebanon while attempting to join IS and sent back to Germany as he is a German citizen.
The Citroen Spacetourer used in the attack in Tiergarten park is removed from the crash scene by police
Berliners gather at Brandenburg Gate after a deadly incident in which a vehicle crashed into a crowd celebrating Pride
People mourn together in front of a rainbow flag as they gather on July 26, 2026, at the Brandenburg Gate
A woman wipes away tears as she attends the memorial site commemorating the victims near the scene where a car rammed into a crowd
Police form a perimeter around the vehicle which crashed into a crowd near Berlin’s annual Christopher Street Day Pride parade on Saturday
Police officers secure the area at an allotment garden complex in the Berlin suburb of Spandau
The force said it is ‘not currently looking for others’ in connection with the attack after Abdul Ballout was shot and killed
An emergency vehicle at the site of an allotment garden complex in the Berlin suburb of Spandau
Spiegel reported that a few weeks ago there was a tip-off that Abdul B had posted a photo online posing with a weapon.
However, a search of his apartment turned up only a toy replica. Police had been deployed to the suspect’s alleged address, around one kilometre south of the scene of the attack.
Following Saturday’s attack, Berlin’s mayor, Kai Wegner, said: ‘This was an attack on all of us. It was an attack on our way of life and coexistence… and our way of life. Ladies and gentlemen, this must end. We must be very clear about this.’
Police and prosecutors said the suspect was believed to have injured several people with a moving vehicle before one or more people left the van.
Several people were also apparently stabbed, they added.
Chancellor Friedrich Merz described the incident as ‘an attack on our society’.
‘What an abhorrent act in Berlin,’ Merz wrote in a post on X. He added that Germany loves freedom, ‘and we will preserve and defend that’.
The attack unfolded near the city’s annual Pride celebrations on Saturday evening, triggering a major emergency response and prompting authorities to launch a large-scale manhunt.
Police have not yet disclosed a motive but are investigating the incident as a suspected extremist attack.
According to police, a white van drove into the Tiergarten park around 10pm and hit several people before colliding with a tree.
The closing party at the Pride festival, known as Christopher Street Day, was going on nearby at the time, following a parade with some 80 trucks that had made its way through downtown Berlin earlier in the day.
Julian Miethig, who had attended the LGBTQ+ party earlier, said he had just wanted to go to an afterparty when he heard from a friend that ‘something bad happened’.
He said he went to Tiergarten and was shocked that something like this could have happened at Berlin’s Pride celebrations. ‘It’s a dark day for the community,’ he added.
The Pride event next to the Brandenburg Gate was called off around 10:15pm and a band’s performance on stage was interrupted.
Organisers of the Christopher Street Day pride celebrations in Berlin have cancelled a further two events following the attack.
Hundreds of thousands of people had come to Berlin to be at one of Europe’s largest LGBTQ+ celebrations on Saturday, although it is unclear how many were still at the festival by late evening.
The word ‘Evacuation’ was displayed in bright colours on a large screen near the Brandenburg Gate, as people were urged to go home and to avoid taking the route through the Tiergarten park, with an Instagram post instructing them to leave in an ‘orderly manner’.
‘Please avoid the Victory Column and the Tiergarten. Leave the area in the direction of the main train station,’ the post read.
