ISISISIS coming defeat in Mosul could drive jihadists attacks in Germany

Published 31 October 2016

Hans-Georg Maassen, the head of Germany’s domestic intelligence agency, said that the German authorities are preparing for possible terror attacks on German soil as pressure builds on ISIS in Iraq. The U.S.-led coalition’s operation to push ISIS out of Mosul could encourage ISIS supporters in Europe to carry out attacks, Maassen said.

Hans-Georg Maassen, the head of Germany’s domestic intelligence agency, said that the German authorities are preparing for possible terror attacks on German soil as pressure builds on ISIS in Iraq.

The U.S.-led coalition’s operation to push ISIS out of Mosul could encourage ISIS supporters in Europe to carry out attacks, Maassen told German public radio Deutschlandfunk.

That is what we want to prevent and we are preparing ourselves accordingly,” the Maassen said.

The number of German – and European — ISIS fighters who have returned home as a result of ISIS military retreat has been small so far, Maassen said.

The number of Germans who have traveled to Syria and Iraq has fallen steadily from the summer of 2014 to August of this year, but the numbers have now levelled off, Maassen said.

My impression is that the fighting in Syria and Iraq is currently not so attractive for German jihadists,” he explained, adding that it could be “too dangerous to get there.”

U.S. military sources say that many of the foreign fighters among the 4,500 jihadists in Mosul will probably form the core of the holdout jihadist force, preferring to die fighting rather than surrendering.

Maassen told Deutschlandfunk that right-wing extremism is also a growing concern in Germany.

We are concerned that there could be right-wing terrorist individuals or individual cells in Germany,” he said. Specifically, Maassen named the “Old School Society” as a possible threat. He said the group, which has a nation-wide network, planned to carry out attacks on refugees and Salafists.

Members of the far-right, populist “Reichsbürger” movement attacked and wounded four police officers during a shootout on 19 October in Bavaria, and one of the officers later died of his injuries.

Maassen noted that anti-foreigner crimes rose by 116 percent in the last year.