Tipsheet

Italian Officials Are Now Saying Yesterday's Car Attack Wasn't Terrorism, but This Instead

Amy Curtis
Amy Curtis  |  May 18, 2026 9:00 AM

On Saturday, a man named Salim El Koudri rammed a vehicle into several pedestrians in Modena, Italy. He injured several of them and reportedly tried to stab a bystander who tried to intervene. This follows the pattern of Islamic vehicle attacks that have taken place in Europe and America, including the New Year's Day attack in New Orleans. 

Despite this, Italian officials are now dismissing terrorism as a motive and are instead saying that Koudri was mentally ill.

Here's more:

Italy's Interior Minister Matteo Piantedosi said the 31-year-old man who drove into a crowd in Modena on Saturday was not suspected of a terrorist act and was dealing with mental issues. 

Investigators have ruled out that terrorism was at play after a man drove a car into [a] crowd in the Italian city of Modena on Saturday, injuring eight people.

The driver, a 31-year-old Italian man of Moroccan heritage, hit several people before crashing into a shop window, colliding head-on with a woman. Four people were in critical condition following the incident, authorities said.

The driver, an economics graduate born in 1995 who was not known to the police, went through a spell of "psychological disturbance" in 2022, city prefect Fabrizia Triolo said at a news conference on Saturday.

"He was under treatment in our mental health centres in 2022 because he had problems with schizoid illness, after which he disappeared from the radar and unfortunately reappeared in this form today in a dramatic and unfortunate way," said the mayor of Modena, Massimo Mezzetti.

Ah, so they knew the man had mental health issues years ago and still let him roam free on the streets of Modena.

Sure seems that way. And they're letting the inmates run the asylum.

Yes.

Very interesting.

And he'll likely not go to prison for this. They'll 'treat' him, release him, and he'll try to kill again.

That's 'justice' to the Left these days.

Do they think we're supposed to feel sympathy? If they're mentally ill and prone to violence, they should be locked up or deported.

We're sure it's just a coincidence.

This does nothing to address the concerns about Islamic terrorism, and all it does is stigmatize all mentally ill people as violent. By refusing to label Islamic terror attacks as Islamic terror attacks, the Left undermines its own argument and causes.