German prosecutors have indicted a 20-year-old Syrian national for plotting a radical Islamic terrorist attack he hoped would kill several hundred people.
The man, identified only as Yamen A., was charged with the ‘preparation of serious, state-damaging violence’, according to the Office of the Public Prosecutor General. The March 3, 2018 indictment states that since the summer of 2017, Yamen A. has been radicalized, embracing jihad and supporting the ideology of the ‘Islamic State’. Federal prosecutors said that by July 2017, he had decided to emulate attacks by the Islamic State group in Hamburg and blow himself up in a crowded area.
“According to the defendant, he planned to kill at least 200 people in addition to earlier [Daesh/ISIS] – sponsored attacks in Europe. He deemed it important to create an atmosphere of fear and uncertainty among Germans,” the Federal Prosecutor’s Office said in a statement. The location the intended terrorist had chosen to strike remains unclear.
German police had arrested the suspect on October 31, 2017; 11 months after a brutal jihadist truck attack at a Berlin Christmas Market killed 12 people before being killed by police four days later. Yamen A. was held by Special Forces in Schwerin. At the time of his arrest, the Syrian national was suspected of having ‘planned and already concretely prepared an Islamist-motivated attack in Germany using very powerful explosives’, according to the federal prosecutors office on that date.
Authorities say the suspect had used the Internet to learn how to assemble a detonator. He began buying components and chemicals for the explosives in late July. His intent was to construct an ignition module and a TATP (triacetontriperoxide) bomb from hydrogen peroxide, sulfuric acid and acetone, all of which were found in his home. The suspect has been in custody since his arrest.
This is just the latest thwarted terror plot that involved a Syrian migrant asylum seeker. It is believed that in Germany asylum seekers make up half of all terrorist suspects. Last month, a 30-year-old Syrian medical student living in Germany went on trial for plotting to target a Berlin synagogue and training his girlfriends’ seven-year-old son to become a jihadi soldier. According to the indictment against him, the Syrian is believed to have shown the little boy Islamic State propaganda videos which glorified child soldiers ‘showing how other children fought for the Islamic State, shot other people and were themselves shot.’
The prosecutors charged that an element of abuse existed as well; they say the man struck the child in the stomach with a wooden stick. The foiled terrorist had downloaded instructions on how to make an explosive device and reached out to other Islamic radicals he knew to see if they would join him in his intended suicide attack on the synagogue.
The 30-year-old came top Germany in 2012 on a student visa; he is currently under indictment for being a member of a terrorist group, plotting a large-scale violent attack and abuse of a minor. According to a Heritage Foundation report, attacks across Europe by foreign-trained militants saw a dramatic increase following the height of the immigrant influx in 2016, with Germany a much more popular target.
In 2015, Germany took in over 1 million refugees; 2016 saw a surge in terror plots involving those refugees. Plots in Germany accounted for just 5 percent of those in Europe in 2015 before rising to 27 percent in 2016. Migrant planned attacks struck nine separate European countries since 2014, but Germany was most targeted at 12 of 22 known plots. In 2016, Europe was attacked by 16 migrant/foreign fighter plots, 11 of which targeted Germany.
Before 2016 (when 1 million asylum seekers flooded into the country) Germany was not targeted by terrorist trained abroad — England and France saw most of the attacks. In 2016 however, 60 percent of all plots in Germany were planned or conducted by foreign-trained militants — all of whom had fought or trained in Syria.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel effectively opened her nation’s borders in 2015; since then, Germany has taken in far more immigrants than any other European nation. The date for Yamen A.’s trial is not specified.
~ Liberty Planet
