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After several Islamist terrorist attacks, Haldenwang, head of the Office for the Protection of the Constitution, warns against copycat acts. The security authorities in Germany should be “very vigilant.”
By Michael Götschenberg, ARD capital studio
The Office for the Protection of the Constitution considers that the renewed debate on the cartoons of Muhammad in France is the main trigger for the Islamist-motivated attacks in recent weeks. Thomas Haldenwang, chairman of the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, told Islamists that the issue aroused the emotions of Islamists. ARD capital study.
The Islamist scene in Germany is also discussing this very intensely and is showing solidarity with the religious brothers and sisters in France. “In this regard, I think yes, the security authorities in Germany have to be very vigilant at this time and watch very carefully those who are known to us.” Because, according to the assessment, surely there is one or the other who thinks of acts of imitation.
Around 620 threats
The protection of the constitution relies on 2,060 people on the Islamist scene in Germany who would be ready to carry out or participate in a terrorist attack. This currently includes around 620 threats, which are particularly on the radar of the security authorities and are constantly reassessed in terms of their danger.
In recent weeks there has been a whole chain of attacks by radical Islamists. In a suburb of Paris, a teacher who had shown his students cartoons of Muhammad was beheaded. In Nice, an Islamist killed three people with a knife. There was also a knife attack in Dresden’s old town: an Islamist threat known to security authorities attacked two men with a knife, one of whom did not survive the attack.
And finally Vienna: on Monday night, an Islamist attacker shot numerous people with a rifle in the center of the city. Four victims died and more than 20 were injured, some seriously, before the police fired on the author himself.
Protection of the Constitution: Threat situation unchanged
Since then, the question of whether Europe is experiencing a new wave of Islamist attacks has been debated. According to the Office for the Protection of the Constitution, the threat posed by Islamist terrorism has not changed. There were no more Islamist-motivated attacks in Germany after 2017. However, the corresponding plans were made: the security authorities only managed to recognize them at an early stage and intervene, said Haldenwang, head of constitution protection.
In recent years, he has always said that the threat posed by Islamist terrorism remains high: “We also have to reckon with an Islamist attack every day in Germany.”
The starting position for Europe changed significantly when the so-called “Islamic State” (IS) disappeared from the map. For years, radicalized Islamists from numerous countries had moved to Syria and Iraq to participate in the jihad there.
The long arm of the “caliphate”
In Germany, the authorities registered a total of more than 1,000 departures, mainly towards the Islamic State or other Islamist terrorist groups. During this time the arm of the self-proclaimed caliphate reached Europe: There were numerous terrorist attacks in several Western European countries.
Remember the major attacks in Paris in November 2015 on the Bataclan concert hall and central Paris, on the metro and Brussels airport, the attack with a truck in Nice and on the Christmas market at Berlin’s Breitscheidplatz in December 2016. Either you were directly planned by IS, or your mentors radicalized and accompanied the attackers until the attack. Or at least they were inspired by the highly professional propaganda of ISIS.
However, after the terrorist organization was declared militarily defeated, it did not disappear, but instead returned to its place of origin: underground in Syria and Iraq.
Restructured
In doing so, it was restructured and adapted to the new framework conditions: of the 13 old administrative units from the time of the “Caliphate”, four were left for the army, security, media and finances, according to security circles. After the suicide of IS leader and self-proclaimed caliph Abu Bakr al Baghdadi in late October 2019, the organization’s then number two, Abu Ibrahim al Qurashi, took the initiative: there were no succession struggles and no signs of disintegration.
The propaganda disseminated by the IS decreased in quantity and quality, but it did not stop: it is mainly aimed at initiating attacks by individual perpetrators. It is said in security circles that, even under its new leadership, the IS has the right to continue carrying out attacks in the Western world.
However, due to the assassination of senior Islamic State leadership cadres, the necessary expertise within the organization has been lost. However, it is said, there are certainly efforts to build a corresponding organizational unit.
“In any case, you can see that the Islamic State is making efforts to reorganize itself,” said Haldenwang, head of constitution protection. ARD capital study. The Vienna attacker saw himself as a member of IS and sent a video to the organization in which he pledged allegiance to the IS leader, al Quarshi. The 20-year-old tried to travel to Syria in 2018 to join the Islamic State, but failed and was eventually convicted in Austria.
Coordinated approach?
“Further investigations should show whether there really was any contact between the perpetrator and the people involved in the Islamic State in the Arab world,” Haldenwang said. “If you are ready to plan, coordinate or initiate attacks in Western Europe from a distance, I put a question mark behind that.”
The Office for the Protection of the Constitution does not yet see a coordinated approach in Western Europe with concrete structures and plans. But IS propaganda is already enough to motivate radicalized individual perpetrators to act and confess to IS.
