The number of Germans joining the ranks of extreme Islamic State militants has increased sharply with current estimations believing that several hundred of the thousands of Islamists currently residing in Germany holding fundamentalist viewpoints. Hans-Georg Maassen, head of Germany’s domestic intelligence agency, profiles the group of militant Islamists as mainly male children of immigrants seeking direction following their difficulty in integrating into the German way of life.
Part of the September 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center in New York were planned in Hamburg. Three of the four 9/11 pilots and at least six supporters belonged to a Hamburg terror cell.
Lebanese students Jihad Hamad and Yousef El Hajdib had also targeted Germany by planning to detonate two homemade suitcase bombs on packed trains from Cologne to Hamm and Koblenz on July 21, 2006. They failed to explode and, one of the suitcase bombers, El Hajdib, is still in Germany serving a life sentence.
Adam Yilmaz, Daniel Schneider and Fritz Gelowicz are part of the Sauerland cell that had planned bomb attacks on German and U.S. Army facilities on September 4, 2007to protest against the Bundeswehr’s deployment to Afghanistan. For the next 12 years they will be behind bars.
Sauerland cell leader’s wife Filiz Gelowicz was tried in court. The 29-year-old admitted to raising money to support the jihad and she was sentenced to two-and-a-half years in jail.
Lets not forget the Frankfurt Airport attack on March 2, 2011, when Kosovo-born German Arid Uka shot two U.S. soldiers to death and severly injured two others. This was the only Islamist attack in Germany that resulted in fatalities.
Halil S. was accused of belonging to a Dusseldorf terror cell with one of the members of this group even said to have been a bodyguard for Osama bin Laden at some point The group planned an attack on Germany, instead all four members were stopped before their plans were carried out and appeared before court on December 9, 2011.
The Salafists are a growing gruop of extremists. Some estimations put them as high as 7,000. They have been handing out free German translations of the Koran since October 2011 as part of their “Lies!” campaign. Their goal is to distribute 25 million copies. Around 500 of the group are believed to have traveled to war zones in Syria and Iraq and are viewed as potentially dangerous.
A bomb was left in a blue sports bag at the Bonn train station as a demonstration of radical Islamist power on December 10, 2012. It did not explode due to a defect in its construction. Marco G. from Oldenburg, a muslim convert, was found responsible for the attempted attack.
The “Sharia Police”, wearing orange vests, patrol the streets ordering young Muslims not to gamble, drink or listen to music.
Kreshnik B. joined the Islamic State in Syria in July 2013. He was arrested in Frankfurt when he returned on the gorunds of being a member of the IS terror militia. The man faces over four years in prison if he is convincted. It is the first time that a person returning from the war zones in Iraq and Syria has been tried in Germany.
Rapper Denis Cuspert was born in Berlin to a German father and Ghanian mother and grew up to be Germany’s most notorious jihadi. Earlier this month, he was identified in a beheading video and the German government is seeking to have him put on the UN’s terror list.
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