Four young people have been arrested on suspicion of planning Islamist-motivated terror attacks, German media have reported. A state security officer called it another example of young people “becoming radicalized online.”
The suspects include a 15-year-old from Düsseldorf, a 15-year-old from the district of Soest, and a 16-year-old from the Märkischer Kreis district. The fourth young person comes from Baden-Württemberg. According to the Public Prosecutor General’s Office, their plans involved “murder and manslaughter in conjunction with the preparation of a serious act of violence endangering the state.”
According to Bild, the youths, who were detained over the Easter weekend, are said to have glorified the jihadist militia Islamic State (IS), and were planning to attack worshipers in churches and synagogues as well as police stations, using knives and Molotov cocktails.
The father of one of the girls is known to the police and is said to have collected donations for IS in the past.
According to Interior Minister for Nordrhein-Westfalen Herbert Reul (CDU), the plans were “quickly and purposefully” thwarted. According to Reul, five days passed from German security authorities’ initial findings to the arrests. “We succeeded in preventing worse things from happening.”
The authorities were first alerted to plans by a 16-year-old girl from the city of Iserlohn (in North Rhine-Westphalia) to travel to Islamic State territory. By analyzing her phone chat history, they came across another young person from North Rhine-Westphalia and then two more, who together were discussing and planning terror attacks during Ramadan, and potentially over Easter.
Subsequently, the state security service and Düsseldorf police became involved in the investigation. They quickly discovered that the plans for terror attacks were fairly advanced, with the list of potential targets including venues in Dortmund, Düsseldorf, and Cologne, as well as churches and synagogues in Iserlohn.
Reul expressed horror at the fact that the children had been radicalized into joining IS, which he blamed on the internet.
As previously reported by The European Conservative, in November last year, German police made a string of arrests of would-be Islamist terrorists (some underage) who were planning attacks on Christmas markets. Two 15 and 16-year-old youths were then arrested for allegedly planning a Christmas market attack in Leverkusen.
