Investigators suspect a Muslim of Moroccan origin of Islamist terrorism after he mowed down seven pedestrians with his Citroën C3 in Modena, Italy on May 16, 2026. They found footage of terrorist violence on his cellphone along with internet searches concerning vehicular attacks.
A paramedic who spotted the 31-year-old assailant, Salim El Koudri, the evening before the attack testified that she had overheard him bragging to an accomplice that he would be paid “more than 40,000 euros” to execute “a beautiful show, which many will see.”
“This is typical ISIS modus operandi...”
“I connected the pieces right away. That ‘beautiful spectacle’ was the attack. On Saturday evening, I rushed to the police station to file everything with the investigators. I couldn’t keep quiet,” the female paramedic who has chosen to remain anonymous, told Italian daily Il Giornale.
The witness, who identified the assailant from a photograph, said that the conversation took place in front of a Pakistani-run shop, where “last year, during the first war with Israel, they were chanting praises for Iran.”
As new evidence of El Koudri’s Islamist motivation is emerging, police in Reggio Emilia and Bologna arrested a Moroccan Italian Muslim accused of recruiting for terrorism, including international terrorism, judicial sources said on May 25.
Investigators said that the second man suspected of jihadi terrorism had expressed the intention to go downtown armed with a knife to carry out an assault. The suspect met with an Islamic State supporter, who offered to train and finance him to carry out an attack, ANSA.it reported.
Police Find ‘Very Significant’ Video of Violence
Five women and three men were injured, including a woman who lost both her legs, when El Koudri struck them with his car in downtown Modena. Four victims are in serious condition.
Police found five computers, four mobile phones, two hard drives, two USB sticks, one tablet, one PlayStation, 100 handwritten sheets of paper, diaries, and notepads in a raid on El Koudri’s home in Ravarino, a town northeast of Modena.
Investigators found at least one “very significant” video of violence on his mobile phone. Investigators also found a history of internet searches on similar attacks committed in Europe on El Koudri’s computers.
In a telephone call to a job center, El Koudri had asked: “Show me what must I do? Kill a person? Because no one knows who I am...” the television program Fuori dal Coro revealed.
Investigators are examining four emails El Koudri sent to the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia on April 27, 2021, between 7:28 p.m. and 8:38 p.m. “You need to give me work as an employee, not a warehouse worker, you understand, and here in Modena, not in the middle of nowhere where you’re left with 500 euros a month if you’re lucky,” he wrote.
A few minutes later, El Koudri writes: “You f*****g Christian bastards and your Jesus Christ on the cross, I’ll burn him.” He apologized in his final email: “Sorry for the rudeness,” Focus on Western Islamism reported previously.
Counterterrorism Experts Explain Dynamics of Terrorist Attack
“Technically, whatever others may say, it was an attack. The dynamics of the action demonstrate this,” counterterrorism expert Giampiero Spinelli explained. “The zigzag movement of the car is typical of those who carry out these actions: it serves to hit as many people as possible and to avoid being hit, for example, by the police.
“He concentrated everything in a very short time for maximum effectiveness. And the use of a knife is the clue that there would have been a second phase if it hadn’t been blocked. These are elements of a protocol used in other attacks,” Spinelli told a reporter.
“The Modena attack is terrorism,” Claudio Bertolotti, director of the Observatory on Radicalism and Counterterrorism (REACT), told Italian newspaper La Verità. “We must not fall into the trap of considering these individuals as non-terrorists because they have mental health issues: it’s the exact opposite.”
“It is precisely because they have mental health issues that it is easier for them to fall into the trap of terrorism, that is, to find in terrorism, in jihadism, a point of reference and a justification for venting pent-up anger, dissatisfaction, or psychological distress,” Bertolotti, former head of NATO’s counterintelligence and security wing in Afghanistan, stressed.
“This is the new normal, not the exception,” he added, challenging the mainstream narrative of mental illness as the primary motivation for El Koudri’s violent behavior.
‘Typical ISIS Modus Operandi’
Giovanni Giacalone, an Italian expert in terrorism and counterterrorism at the David Institute for Security Policy, affirmed Bertolotti’s assessment in an email to FWI.
“El Koudri left his home outside the city for the target area, a crowded, traffic-free zone (ZTL) where he could race his car without obstruction from other vehicles. The time and day, 4:30 pm on Saturday, aren’t coincidental, as it’s a very busy time. He was trying to achieve the greatest possible number of victims,” Giacalone wrote.
Giacalone, a senior advisor for the “Monitoring Jihadism Italy Project,” said El Koudri appeared to deliberately target a crowded pedestrian zone at a busy time to maximize casualties. “This is typical ISIS modus operandi, with a vehicular first phase, and a second phase on foot using a knife,” Giacalone said. He also noted that intelligence agencies have warned terrorists use gaming consoles such as the PlayStation 4 for covert communications.
Jihadi Channels Praise El Koudri’s Attack in ‘Crusader Heartland’
Fuori dal Coro’s investigative report found videos of the Modena attack circulating on jihadist channels, with these comments in Arabic: “I have never seen anyone more courageous than the monotheist who carries out an operation alone in the heartland of the Crusaders. If our brother’s intention was sincere and he acted out of revenge, may Allah grant him paradise.”
Investigators also uncovered Arabic writings by Mohammed El Koudri, the attacker’s father, railing against Western colonialism. In one note, Salim’s father wrote: “Because colonialism dominated, the northwestern countries imposed themselves on North Africa, and the colonized countries have never expressed their identity.”
A Muslim who attended the Bomporto mosque frequented by El Koudri told journalist Serena Pizzi that El Koudri “had an accident.” When asked if the Muslims condemned the attack, the response was a terse “No,” Il Giornale reported.
Catholic Bishops Dodge the Question of Islamism
The archbishop of Modena, Monsignor Erio Castellucci, who is also vice president of the Italian Episcopal Conference (CEI), joined the leftist and Muslim voices defending the assailant as a victim of isolation. “I would meet with El Koudri and listen to him to try to understand what drove him to do what he did,” he told Catholic media outlet Familia Christiana.
“We need to strengthen integration processes, especially for second-generation immigrants,” the prelate remarked. “Many were born in Italy and are our fellow citizens, but they are often isolated and harbor anger.”
The Italian bishops’ daily newspaper Avvenire carried multiple articles blaming the violence on a lack of integration and exhorting Italian Catholics to “say no to the shortcuts of propaganda.”
“When crime stories involve people with an immigrant background, a collectivization mechanism inevitably kicks in: the perpetrator becomes the expression of an entire population, indeed, a demonstration of the threat posed by immigration,” an Avvenire op-ed stated.
“Not only the attacker, Salim El Koudri, in the province of Modena, 44 percent of crimes are committed by 14 percent of the resident population, foreigners,” Francesca Totolo, writer and anti-feminist activist, wrote on X.
