[8] The stabbing has intensified the migration debate in Germany, prompting some politicians to advocate for stricter border controls and a suspension of refugee admissions.

[11] The incident took place at the Fronhof [de], a central square and marketplace in the heart of the city, where three stages had been set up for live music performances.

[1] During the subsequent panic, the attacker fled the area unnoticed and discarded the weapon, a kitchen knife 15 cm in length, in a nearby trash can, as well as his jacket and personal documents in an alley.

[9] According to the German daily tabloid Bild, heavily armed SEK units, totaling around 40 special vehicles from across North Rhine-Westphalia, were deployed to Solingen.

[9] On 24 August, Islamic State (ISIS) released a statement through its Amaq News Agency outlet[7] on the messaging app Telegram claiming responsibility.

[1][7] On 25 August, ISIS shareda one-minute video in social media, showing a masked man, who the group claimed to be the perpetrator, holding a knife and swearing an oath of loyalty to its leader.

In the same video, the man professes that the attack was committed as a vengeance act for the killings of Muslims in Syria, Bosnia, Iraq, and Palestine with "support of Zionists".

[21] As of 29 August 2024, North Rhine-Westphalia's interior minster Herbert Reul stated that the man could not certainly be identified as the actual perpetrator, nor could direct ISIS involvement be confirmed.

[3] The three dead victims were identified as 67-year-old Stefan Schulz, 56-year-old Ines Wallusch, and 56-year-old Florian H., the former two locals to Solingen while H. was a regular commuter from Düsseldorf.

[32] He was born in 1998 in Deir ez-Zor and left Syria in November 2022, reportedly at the wish of his family to avoid potential entry into the Islamic State.

The same month, Al Hassan traveled to Bochum, Germany, and on 27 January 2023, he filed an asylum application in Bielefeld, in which he named several reasons for his immigration, including fears of conscription into the Syrian Arab Armed Forces, opposition to the Assad government's actions in the Rojava conflict and to financially support his family.

[35][36] His application was denied in February 2023 since Al Hassan was registered in Bulgaria and based on the Dublin Regulation, he was to be deported there to receive asylum status.

[36][30][40] After the arrest of the alleged perpetrator, the Public Prosecutor General took over the investigation on suspicion of a terrorist offence or politically motivated crime.

[3][42] Minister of the Interior of North Rhine-Westphalia Herbert Reul, who traveled to Solingen on the night of the attack, warned against speculation about the perpetrator, saying that it was as yet impossible to say anything about him or his motives.

[47][31] In an email to chancellor Olaf Scholz of the SPD seen by media, Friedrich Merz, leader of the CDU/CSU, the largest opposition party, asked for radical changes in migration policy.

[48] Fellow SPD chief Saskia Esken said in early September that lessons should be drawn from the attack, after previous statements by her to the extent that there was nothing much to learn from it, as the alleged perpetrator had not been known to police, had widely been criticized.

[49] The far-right party Alternative for Germany blamed not only the ruling coalition but also the CDU/CSU opposition for alleged shortcomings on security, linking it with immigration even before the identity of the assailant was released.

[56] Criminologist Dirk Baier of the Zurich University of Applied Sciences warned that stricter laws were unlikely to root out knife assaults, saying that they were ineffective against young perpetrators and that there had to be enough checking personnel in the proposed weapons-ban zones.

[12] When interviewed by the press service of the Evangelical Church in Germany, social psychologist Andreas Zick of the University of Bielefeld called for a thorough analysis of the terror, a deepened analysis of potential perpetrators, a careful assessment of options for the possibility of implementation from a legal viewpoint – something that he saw as having been neglected by parties in the middle of the political spectrum in the past –, and most of all, care for the victims and their relatives.