German authorities have arrested three Islamic extremists accused “of planning a serious act of violence,” seizing an assault rifle, knives and other items during the operation, officials announced Tuesday, the German newspaper reported. AFP news agency. According to the report, police carried out the raids on Sunday, targeting the homes of two German-Lebanese brothers, aged 15 and 20, in Mannheim, and a 22-year-old German-Turkish man in the district of Hochtaunusin the state of Hesse. According to German media reports, the three extremists had planned to attack the Christmas markets in Frankfurt and Mannheim. In a joint statement, local prosecutors and police said the planned act “would have could have endangered the State”, but they did not provide further details also because the investigations are still ongoing given that those arrested are believed to be part of a vast terrorist network. The authorities revealed that the brothers of Mannheim “they had a strong religious ideology and deep sympathy for the Islamic State group (ISIS) and had developed concrete plans for an attack.”
A long trail of blood in Germany
For several years the Germany is on high alert for possible Islamist attacks, particularly after the outbreak of war between Israel and Hamas on October 7 last year. In this regard, the Federal Minister of the Interior Nancy Faeser in November 2023 it outlawed the terrorist organization Hamas and the international network “Samidoun – Palestinian Solidarity Network” from every activity in Germany. The federal minister also banned the sub-organization “Samidoun Deutschland”, which also operates under the names “HIRAK – Palestinian Youth Mobilization Jugendbewegung (Germany)” and “Hirak eV”, and ordered its immediate dissolution. According to the Ministry of the Interior and the Federal Criminal Police Office, “Germany continues to be a target for terrorist organizations, in particular for the so-called Islamic State, and coordination is therefore essential,” the authorities said.
At the end of October 2023, the city police of Essenin western Germany, arrested a man who had planned to attack a pro-Israel demonstration. In December of that year, a 15-year-old boy was arrested in western Germany on suspicion of planning a possible attack on a Christmas market. Weeks later, German police arrested three people who wanted to carry out an attack on Cologne Cathedral on New Year’s Eve. In late May, German authorities arrested two men suspected of planning a knife attack on worshipers at a synagogue in the southwestern city of Heidelberg. A few days later, German authorities arrested a teenager suspected of planning an attack with a home-made bomb in accordance with al-Qaeda’s “Make a bomb in the kitchen of your Mom” doctrine. your mother.” While in August, three people were killed and eight injured in a series of stabbings during a street festival in Solingen while in June, a police officer was stabbed to death in Mannheim by an Afghan citizen seeking asylum.
Hamas in Germany
Two weeks ago, German federal prosecutors announced the indictment of four alleged Hamas members, accusing them of acquiring and storing weapons for the group in Europe. Prosecutors said the men held key roles within an organization linked directly to Hamas military leaders. One of the suspects, identified as Ibrahim El-R., born in Lebanon, allegedly set up an arms cache in Bulgaria in early 2019. This warehouse contained several weapons, including a Kalashinov assault rifle. In the same year, Ibrahim El-R. he allegedly dismantled another weapons cache in Denmark, moving a gun from there to Germany. Subsequently, between June and December 2023, all four suspects allegedly left in an attempt to locate a further Berlin depot of Hamas weapons in Poland but failed to find it. According to investigators, “Hamas has long set up secret weapons depots in various European countries, with the aim of using them for possible attacks against Jewish institutions.”
