Islamist Terrorism: Germany Is Home to More than 600 Agitators
As of July 1, 2020, of the approximately 300 Islamist fighters who have returned to Germany from IS-held territory in Syria and Iraq, 109 were classified as agitators and 90 as “relevant persons.”
All in all, the authorities estimate that nearly 30,000 people in Germany are potential supporters of Islamist terrorism. Most of them, more than 12,000, are Salafists. Their circles were and remain the main support base for violent jihadism.
How to Keep Tabs on Agitators
Each agitator is assessed individually by the security authorities. Depending on the outcome of the assessment, a range of measures is possible, ranging from a verbal warning to technical surveillance to around-the-clock observation by police.
Total surveillance is staff-intensive. According to the intelligence services, 25 to 30 police officers are needed to monitor a single person. Hence, the bar to impose round-the-clock surveillance is high.
The alleged Dresden attacker did not clear that bar. Abdullah al-H. was released from prison in late September, shortly before the attack. He had served his sentence and taken part in a deradicalization program. Nevertheless, he was seen as radicalized and dangerous.
Therefore, strict conditions were attached to his release and he had to report to the police every day. The intelligence services placed a hidden camera at the entrance to where he lived. The authorities appear to have missed the fact that he bought two sets of knives in a Dresden department store two days before the attack.
Deportations Not Always Possible
The debate about deporting agitators reignites after every terrorist attack. After the knife attack in Dresden, German Interior Minister Horst Seehofer openly considered putting an end to the policy of not deporting agitators to Syria.
Apart from the moral issue of whether it is right to deport people to a war zone without a conviction, there is a range of obstacles to deportations to Syria. First and foremost, Berlin has no diplomatic relations with Damascus and there are no official channels to the Syrian authorities.
Nevertheless, agitators do get deported. The authorities have been keeping records of this since 2017. By the end of 2019, 93 agitators and “relevant persons” had been deported. Deportations are legally fraught and time-consuming. One example is the case of Anis Amri, the man who committed the attack on a Christmas market in Berlin in 2016 that claimed 12 lives, making it the worst Islamist attack on German soil.
Partly because Amri had at least 14 different aliases, the German authorities, in their bid to have him deported, were unable to source the necessary identification papers from Tunisia in time. They did not arrive until two days after the attack.
The main obstacle to deportation from Germany, however, is that most of the people classified as agitators are German citizens.
Matthias von Hein is a journalist based in Bonn, Germany.This article is published courtesy of Deutsche Welle (DW).
