Four young people were arrested at the end of March. Reports indicated a planned IS attack. Again the tip came from abroad.
Vienna – Four young people from North Rhine-Westphalia and Baden-Württemberg were arrested at the end of March on suspicion of a planned terrorist attack. The 15 and 16-year-olds are suspected of having prepared a terrorist attack “according to the goals and ideology of the Islamic State (IS).” A tip about the suspected terrorist cell is said to have come from abroad.
It is not unusual for tips about suspected planned attacks to come to Germany from foreign intelligence services. It was only after the attack in Moscow in March that German politicians began calling for the expansion of their own surveillance and information system. This time the tip is said to have come from the state security service in Vienna, the Austrian newspaper
Standard
reported , citing German security circles.
The Interior Minister of North Rhine-Westphalia, Herbert Reul, told the
German Press Agency
that only five days had passed from the first knowledge to the last arrest. According to
the dpa,
the four young people are said to have told terror investigators that they were prepared to commit a crime - murder and manslaughter - "in conjunction with the preparation of a serious act of violence that would endanger the state". Police unions warned that the case of the four young terror suspects was worrying. The police also called for vigilance, especially with regard to the radicalization of young people.
Possible targets of the planned attack: churches and synagogues in Dortmund, Düsseldorf or Cologne
There was no concrete plan for the attack yet, the
BR
reported , citing security circles. However, the cities of Dortmund, Düsseldorf and Cologne were targeted as possible crime scenes. More specifically, churches and synagogues are said to have been targets. Knives and Molotov cocktails were mentioned as possible murder weapons.
Federal Interior Minister Nancy Faeser said about the alleged attack plans: “Again we see the high Islamist threat level - and once again our security authorities have shown their high vigilance and intervened early.” However, in this case, the German security authorities also seem to have Vienna State Security to thank for their timely intervention.
Demand for expanded competencies of German security services to combat terrorism
At the end of March, as a result of the terrorist attack on a concert hall near Moscow, Reul warned: “North Rhine-Westphalia can become a target of terrorist attacks at any time.” There were last reports from abroad in December 2023 of suspected planned terrorist attacks on Cologne Cathedral. Information often comes from the USA, where the scope for monitoring online activities, for example, is much greater than in Germany.
After the terror near Moscow, CDU MP Thorsten Frei called for greater use of tools such as online searches and the evaluation of video surveillance using facial recognition to combat terror in Germany. It was also about ending Germany's dependence on foreign intelligence services, he explained to the
Augsburger Allgemeine
. On
Deutschlandfunk
, NRW Interior Minister Reul also called for the police's powers to be expanded in dealing with data on the Internet.
(pav, with information from dpa)