3 German teenagers detained for planning ISIS-like attacks

Berlin:

Police detained two teenage girls and a boy in western Germany on suspicion of planning an Islamist attack, prosecutors said on Friday.

Prosecutors said in a statement that the three, aged between 15 and 16, were “strongly suspected of planning and working to carry out Islamic terrorist attacks.”

The three were all from the Dusseldorf region and were also “guilty of murder and manslaughter,” the prosecutor added.

Investigators did not provide further details about the alleged plot, saying the investigation was ongoing.

But Bild reported that the youths allegedly planned to carry out firebombing and knife attacks in the name of the Islamic State group.

Reports say their targets are believed to be Christians and police officers, and the suspects are also weighing whether to obtain guns.

Germany has been on high alert against Islamist attacks since the start of Israel’s war with Hamas in October, with the country’s domestic intelligence chief warning that the risk of such attacks is “real and higher than it has been in a long time.”

In January, police arrested three people suspected of attacking Cologne Cathedral on New Year’s Eve.

Islamic extremists have carried out a number of violent attacks in Germany in recent years, the deadliest of which was a truck rampage at a Berlin Christmas market in December 2016 that killed 12 people.

Most recently, two Afghans with links to the Islamic State were arrested in Germany in March on suspicion of planning attacks around the Swedish parliament in retaliation for the burning of the Quran.

In October, German prosecutors also charged two Syrian brothers with planning an Islamic State-inspired attack on a church in Sweden.

The number of people on the Islamic extremist spectrum in Germany fell from 28,290 in 2021 to 27,480 in 2022, according to a report by the BfV federal domestic intelligence agency.

But Interior Minister Nancy Feather said Islamic extremism “remains dangerous”.

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