German police in the Thuringian city of Gera on Tuesday arrested two Afghan migrants planning a terrorist attack on the Swedish parliament, the Riksdag. The two men, aged 23 and 30, were collecting funds and attempting to gather weapons “to kill police officers and other people with firearms.”
“The two detainees had already made concrete preparations for a bloody attack,” German Justice Minister Marco Buschmann said.
The older, identified in German media as Ibrahim M.-G., reportedly joined the jihadist terrorist organization ISKP (the Islamic State of Khorasan Province), in December of last year. Investigators told DW that the terror group had commissioned the 30-year-old to carry out the attack as a vengeance for last year’s Quran burnings in Sweden. The younger, Ramin N., is said to be a supporter of the terrorist group. Together, they had collected donations of about €2,000 for ISKP.
According to the Federal Prosecutors Office in Karlsruhe, the two had meticulously planned for the attack in direct coordination with ISKP officials. They had allegedly surveyed the local surroundings of the potential crime scene online and made numerous—but unsuccessful—attempts at acquiring weapons.
Swedish PM Ulf Kristersson said “Sweden has faced a very threatening period,” adding that SÄPO, the Swedish security services, are in close contact with German authorities.
The Swedish government has warned for months of an elevated risk of Islamist terror attacks. In August of last year, when SÄPO raised the threat level to a four on a scale from one to five, its chief Charlotte von Essen said in a press release,
The threat against Sweden has gradually evolved, and the threat of attacks from actors within violent Islamism has increased during this year. Sweden has shifted from being considered a legitimate target for terrorist attacks to being viewed as a prioritized target.
Sweden Democrat MEP Charlie Weimers commented on the arrest on his Facebook page:
This is a result of Europe admitting hundreds of thousands of people from the third world, where Islamist and almost medieval values prevail. These people, who wish us harm, should face the full force of society. They should be imprisoned, prosecuted, and deported, for they have no place in Europe.
ISKP, an offshoot of IS based in Central Asia and Afghanistan, has been on the radar of German law enforcement for some time. The terrorist group has, among other activities, used the internet to recruit young German Muslims for terror attacks in Europe.
