The cancelled Taylor Swift concert in Vienna shows that the threat of terrorism in Europe is still real. An overview of the danger situation in Germany.
Young Islamists who are inspired to carry out terrorist attacks by radical preachers on the Internet are often difficult for security authorities to detect. This is true in Austria, where three concerts by pop singer Taylor Swift were cancelled after a specific warning, as well as in Germany. Often, conspicuous statements in chats, orders for suspicious materials or online transfers to Islamist groups are the only clues.
How is the risk situation assessed in Germany?
Relatively high. This can be seen, among other things, in the effort that the security authorities made during the European Football Championship this summer. “The risk of jihadist attacks is higher than it has been for a long time,” said the President of the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, Thomas Haldenwang, to the German Press Agency in June. According to him, the security authorities are increasingly processing corresponding tips.
What does the “abstractly high” risk that is being talked about mean?
This means that the authorities believe that many people in Germany are capable of attempting to carry out a terrorist attack out of misguided political and religious convictions. It does not mean that they know of plans where the means of the crime and the target of the attack are already known. However, if the security authorities see a high risk in a specific case, they now intervene even if individual elements of a possible plan of the crime are still missing.
One of the most recent Islamist terrorist attacks that could not be prevented was the bloody act of a 27-year-old who killed a 35-year-old passerby with a knife in Duisburg in April 2023. Nine days later, he stabbed four visitors to a gym.
A religious motive is also said to have played a role in the fatal knife attack in Mannheim, where a 25-year-old Afghan injured five men with a knife at the end of May. One of them, 29-year-old police officer Rouven Laur, died of his injuries two days later.
The Office for the Protection of the Constitution is also keeping an eye on a number of mosque communities in which preachers incite hatred against supposed non-believers. Bans are issued time and again. For example, in June the state of Lower Saxony banned the Salafist association German-speaking Muslim Community (DMG) from Braunschweig.
Salafism is a backward-looking, extremely conservative branch of Islam. Its followers see themselves as advocates of an unadulterated Islam. They reject reforms and want to restructure the state, legal system and society according to their rules. The aim is to establish an Islamist “theocracy”.
What is the point of bans?
“We do not tolerate any associations in which alleged non-believers, women or Jews as well as our social order as a whole are regularly devalued and calls are made to fight them,” said Lower Saxony’s Interior Minister Daniela Behrens (SPD) at the time, justifying the ban on the DMG. In order to enforce the measure, a total of eight properties in Braunschweig and Berlin were searched.
However, especially among young terror suspects, there are always people who have never set foot in a Salafist mosque, but are influenced exclusively by so-called Tiktok preachers.
Some of these preachers, some of whom are connected to specific mosques and find their audiences everywhere in the German-speaking world, include Berlin-based Ahmed A., known as Abul Baraa. Since the DMG ban, which resulted in his home being searched and many of his videos being deleted from the Internet, he has become somewhat more moderate verbally, according to information from the German Press Agency. The well-known Salafist preacher has German citizenship.
How much surveillance is allowed?
Young Islamists who become radicalized under the influence of Salafist preachers and terrorists who spread their content exclusively on the Internet and primarily via social media are particularly difficult to detect. Finding evidence of this at an early stage is generally more difficult for security authorities – not least because the hurdles for telecommunications surveillance in Germany are high.
Often, the first step is a tip-off from a US intelligence agency that has noticed expressions of sympathy for the terrorist militia Islamic State (IS) or the terrorist network Al-Qaeda. If further information is then found that indicates a willingness to commit a crime, the suspect can be arrested or temporarily taken into custody.
How many Islamists are there in Germany?
Last year, the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution estimated the number of Islamist individuals at 27,200, although only a portion of them are considered to be prepared to use violence. The intelligence service does not provide any information on how many IS and Al-Qaeda supporters live in Germany.
The authorities are particularly concerned about very young perpetrators, for whom the process of radicalization often proceeds particularly quickly. One example of this is the case of two young people who are said to have planned to carry out an attack on a Christmas market in Leverkusen, North Rhine-Westphalia, using a truck in autumn 2023. The two were 15 and 17 years old at the time.
Will foreign “threats” and radical Salafist preachers be deported?
Yes. According to the federal government, 35 so-called dangerous people were deported from Germany between 2021 and June 2024. “Dangerous people” are people whom the police believe are capable of serious politically motivated crimes, including terrorist attacks. However, some “dangerous people” and many of the Salafists who preach in German have German citizenship. Some of them are citizens of countries to which Germany is currently not deporting anyone for legal or practical reasons. These include Syria and Afghanistan, for example.
The fact that the number of “dangerous people” in Germany has been falling for years is not only due to deportations, but also to the fact that some are leaving voluntarily or turning away from the radical ideology. In July 2021, there were still 333 Islamists in Germany who were assessed as such. Currently, as the Redaktionsnetzwerk Deutschland reports, citing the Federal Criminal Police Office, 96 “dangerous people” are imprisoned in Germany, and 208 are at large within the country.
Source: Stern
I have been working in the news industry for over 6 years, first as a reporter and now as an editor. I have covered politics extensively, and my work has appeared in major newspapers and online news outlets around the world. In addition to my writing, I also contribute regularly to 24 Hours World.
