TerrorismGermany Arrests 4 IS Members Plotting Attacks on U.S. Bases, Killing Critics of Islam

Published 16 April 2020

German police have arrested four members of the Islamic State militant group for planning attacks on U.S. military bases in Germany. The suspects, all migrants from Tajikistan, were also keeping critics of Islam under surveillance, with the goal of assassinating them later.

German prosecutors on Wednesday said four men had been arrested for plotting to carry out attacks in the name of the t Islamic State.”

The four men, from 24 to 32 year-old and originally from Tajikistan, along with a fifth individual who was arrested last year, are believed to have been plotting attacks on U.S. air force bases in Germany.

The Berlin Spectator reports that prosecutors said that the four individuals arrested on Wednesday were also carrying out surveillance of critics of Islam, prosecutors said, targeting them for future assassination.

Attacks had not been due to take place imminently, officials said, but the men had already acquired firearms and ammunition.

The arrests were made early on Wednesday. Apartments, houses, and a warehouse were targeted in six different locations in the western German cities of Essen, Neuss, and Siegen, as well as the district of Heinsberg.

German weekly news magazine Der Spiegel reported that the men’s alleged leader, a 30-year-old Tajik man identified only as Ravsan B., has been in prison on firearms charges since last year.

Ravsan B., who was planning to finance the attacks after accepting a $40,000 contract to assassinate someone in Albania, was said to have already ordered materials to build an explosive device.

Prosecutors said the men swore allegiance to IS in early 2019, and that they had contacts with high-ranking figures from the group in both Syria and Afghanistan.

Prosecutors say that the original plan of the men was to return to Tajikistan to carry out attacks, but later changed their target to Germany.