In the port city of Hamburg, German authorities arrested a 28-year-old Syrian national Tuesday, April 25th, charged for his role in a two-man jihadist bomb plot.
The unnamed man had intended to conduct a suicide bombing with the assistance of his Bavarian-based brother. He first came to the attention of authorities after he tried to procure bomb-making materials on the Internet.
Authorities raided various sites in Hamburg as well as the southern German city of Kempten and issued a statement saying that the plot was motivated by the suspect’s “radical-Islamist and jihadist convictions.”
It is the latest in a string of jihadist terror incidents in Germany. Just last week, another Syrian Islamist was arrested after stabbing four people with a machete at a sports gym in Duisburg.
There are an estimated 800,000 Syrian nationals in Germany, largely driven by the numbers of asylum claimants with many experts warning that the scale of the largely unregulated flow of migrants presents a vast security threat to the country.
In March, the German ambassador to Pakistan warned in a leaked memo that his nation’s asylum process had been penetrated by Islamists with the ex-German intelligence chief vocal about the potential risks facing Germany.
The number of non-nationals in Germany reached record highs with official statistics released last week showing that almost one in four residents in the country had a migrant background. Refugee-related spending in Germany is expected to top €27 billion this year as the country experiences an 80% spike in the number of applications.
The modest rise of right-wing populism in Germany has yet to dent the establishment’s resolve, since the Social Democrat-led coalition government—which took over from Merkel’s CDU—has committed to further immigration despite security concerns.
