Three young suspected jihadists suspected of preparing an attack were arrested on Sunday, December 8, in the southwest of Germany, the federal prosecutor's office and the police announced on Tuesday. Among them, two German-Lebanese brothers, aged 15 and 20, are suspected of having “concretely prepared an attack” motivated by a “deep sympathy for the terrorist group Islamic State” (EI), these sources say in a press release.
To do this, the two brothers obtained an assault rifle, found with its ammunition at the home of the third suspect, a German-Turk aged 22, the German authorities further detail. All three were arrested at their home during an operation “involving special forces” : the two brothers in Mannheim and the third man north of Frankfurt, in the Hesse region.
In addition to the firearm, a balaclava, a bulletproof vest, knives and telephones were seized during the searches. The three suspects were presented Monday afternoon to an investigating judge at the Karlsruhe court, who ordered their pre-trial detention.
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Since the unprecedented attack by the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas against Israel on October 7, 2023, which triggered the war in the Gaza Strip, German authorities have increased their vigilance in the face of the Islamist threat and the resurgence of anti-Semitism, as many countries around the world.
Fear of a resurgence of attacks
Germany is also worried, like other European countries, about a possible renewed activity of IS, which could take advantage of potential chaos in Syria following the fall of Bashar Al-Assad. Several Islamist-motivated attacks or planned attacks, involving foreign nationals, have shocked the country in recent months.
At the end of August, a stabbing attack committed by a Syrian and claimed by IS left three dead and several injured during a party in Solingen, in the west of the country. In May, another knife attack, attributed to an Afghan during an anti-Islam rally in Mannheim, left one dead, a police officer who had intervened.
In September, a 27-year-old Syrian man suspected of links to radical Islam was arrested for planning a machete attack targeting German soldiers in a Bavarian town. At the end of October, German authorities announced that they had foiled a planned attack on the Israeli embassy in Berlin; the suspect, a Libyan suspected of links with ISIS, was arrested.
