Islamist attacks: Terrorism researchers: Many individual offenders with a diffuse motif

In addition to the ideology, the ideology also played a role in several Islamist terrorist attacks of the past five years. Kahl, which at the Institute for Peace Research and Security Policy at the University of Hamburg, has researched “social and political practices in dealing with radical Islam”, said at a press conference in the media service that the perpetrators are involved in “ideological narratives”, which circulated worldwide, but one can also gain the impression “that there is also personal motives that are partly so that the perpetrators are so Rescue from their own life crises promise through the deeds “.

Dissatisfaction with living conditions

It is often a matter of complementing their own living conditions, which the perpetrators themselves were unsatisfactory, and which played an important role in the planning of the crime, an Islamist motive with the aim of “giving more importance to the crime”. The perpetrators are often concerned with strengthening their own self -confidence and becoming famous.

In some cases, it is also difficult for the courts to determine whether the ideology is really in the foreground. “It can be so interwoven that you somehow can’t separate it,” said Kahl.

Four Islamist attacks since the beginning of 2024

In the last four suspected religiously motivated attacks in Mannheim, Solingen, Munich and Berlin, no strong mental disorder was found. However, this does not mean “that the motif behind it is not a general dissatisfaction with your own living conditions, but the dishes must then determine that”.

While in earlier years for Islamist terrorists as “trigger”, Western military interventions such as Iraq and Afghanistan played a role, according to experts, it was later increasingly Mohammed caricatures or Koran burns. From 2014 to 2017, attacks with reference to the Islamic State (IS) terrorist militia followed. According to Kahl, IS ideology is still a reference point. In the last attacks in Germany, which, according to his words, were all committed by “operational individual” with a rather diffuse motif, there was no or only a very loose connection to terrorist groups.

Kahl and his team have counted a total of 15 Islamist terrorist attacks in Germany since 2015, as well as four failed attacks as well as 33 suspected cases and attacks, which were prevented by the security authorities in the planning or preparation phase.