2 Americans wounded in Amsterdam stabbing

Policemen are at work after a stabbing incident at the central station in Amsterdam, on August 31, 2018.
(Image credit: Sem van der Wal/Getty Images)

Two people who were wounded in a stabbing attack at the main railroad station in Amsterdam on Friday were both Americans, the U.S. ambassador to the Netherlands, Pete Hoekstra, said Saturday. They were visiting the country as tourists, and their identities have not been released. Both have been hospitalized, as has the attacker, who was shot by police.

The stabber has been identified as a 19-year-old Afghan citizen who lives in Germany. "At this moment he is under police custody in [the] hospital. He is being questioned about his motive," an Amsterdam police representative said of the suspect. "We are looking at all scenarios, also the worst scenario, which is terrorism." Dutch police are working with German authorities to learn more about his history.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up
Explore More
Bonnie Kristian

Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.