There are clear words from North Rhine-Westphalia: The new Islamism report warns of small groups and solo perpetrators – often lured in by jihadist propaganda. In addition, the NRW state security officers have noticed increasing contacts between Salafist preachers and criminal Kurdish-Lebanese clans.
The bug in the car transmitted a self-written song in Russian to the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA). On May 29, 2023, the Tajik Raboni Z., behind the wheel of his car, sang euphorically about the attack plans of his nine-member terrorist cell, which was causing a bloodbath among the “infidels” (Kuffar) on behalf of the Afghan branch “Islamic State in Khorasan Province” (ISPK). wanted: “We are starting to act in Germany… to become active… to move… the momentum begins in Germany. We’re starting to take action… act here.”
The Islamist singer, who lived in accommodation in Warendorf in North Rhine-Westphalia under a false refugee legend, repeated his phrases again and again. The 29-year-old asylum seeker ranked men who would be willing to wage jihad at the top. From his point of view, every “brother” will be rewarded if he kills the kuffar. A good month earlier, three accomplices of the Central Asian terrorist group had spied on, among other things, the Deutzer fair in Cologne on the right bank of the Rhine as a possible attack target.
In the summer of 2023, the suspected main actors were arrested, mostly in North Rhine-Westphalia. Nine months later, the Federal Prosecutor’s Office charged the seven ISPK suspects with, among other things, forming a terrorist organization. The refugees who triggered the terror alarm around Christmas and New Year’s Eve at St. Stephen’s Cathedral in Cologne and Vienna also come from their immediate environment.
The cases appear in the new “Islamism” situation report, which was presented by NRW Interior Minister Herbert Reul and Jürgen Kayser, head of the NRW Office for the Protection of the Constitution, on Tuesday morning. Minister Reul: “This situation report is part of the intelligence work of the Office for the Protection of the Constitution.” Because, the CDU politician continued: “Islamism is still on the rise.” North Rhine-Westphalia is still in the focus of the jihadists, the minister warned. “There is a high abstract risk of terrorist attacks by Islamist-motivated extremists. The greatest threat comes from the Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISPK) and even radicalized individual perpetrators.”
According to the 64-page analysis, there are “signs that the ISPK in particular is also planning complex, coordinated terrorist attacks in Europe.” According to the state’s Office for the Protection of the Constitution, the danger appears to come from so-called “hit teams” like the Central Asian terror cell that was formed last summer.
The Islamism report warns in particular of small groups and solo perpetrators – often lured in by jihadist propaganda. Since April 2020, seven terrorist attacks on the Rhine and Ruhr have been prevented. Only a Syrian IS supporter killed a man of Turkish origin in Duisburg in the spring of 2023 and seriously injured four people with a knife in an attack in a fitness studio.
In addition, the NRW state security officers have noticed increasing contacts between Salafist preachers and criminal Kurdish-Lebanese clans. “This can result in new dynamics and moments of radicalization,” is the summary in the extremism paper. According to the information, preachers convey “religiously legitimized patriarchal-chauvinistic values with which clan members with a Muslim migration background can in many cases identify,” is the summary. “Conversely, the martial appearance of scene leaders from the relevant clans seems to exert a fascination on some extremist Salafists who approach this in language and appearance.
The risk of an attack has been growing since the massacre by an ISPK hit squad in Moscow. In the latest issue of the magazine “Voice of Khorasan”, the ISPK recently called for attacks during the upcoming European Football Championship (EM) in Germany in the summer. “Run over the disbelievers (Kuffar) with your car.”
Any attacks are therefore mandatory – with a knife, with poison or “blow their brains out with bullets!” The local counter-terrorism department takes such calls very seriously. Especially since the IS offshoot from the Hindu Kush has sent several cells of Central Asian fanatics to North Rhine-Westphalia since 2019 to carry out attacks here.
The threat of terrorism from militant Islamist groups in Germany has increased sharply. In 2023, the Federal Prosecutor’s Office initiated more than twice as many investigations against violent radical Islamic Salafists as in the year before last. According to the federal government, the rate of new cases rose to 461 last year and was 229 in 2022. The number of accused also doubled to 492.
NRW is considered a Salafist hotspot. The number of extremists fell from 3,200 to 2,600 within four years, but at the same time the state protectors have to keep an eye on 600 violent Salafists. Of the almost 500 Islamist threats nationwide, 187 are on the NRW counterterrorism list. According to the state Office for the Protection of the Constitution, the Islamist spectrum is agitating in unison against Israel.
The agitators have been spreading massive anti-Semitic incitement since the Palestinian terrorist organization “Hamas” attacked the Jewish state on October 7, 2023. “The current conflict situation in the Middle East offers opportunities for instrumentalization by Islamists and enables them to appeal for connection and solidarity far beyond their core clientele and into the middle of society,” says the NRW report. Against this background, Interior Minister Reul is calling for bans on Islamist associations such as “Muslim interactive”, which call for anti-Israel demonstrations at which the Islamic caliphate state is celebrated along with the introduction of Sharia law.
Radical preachers like Ibrahim El Azzazi, who is increasingly preaching his Islamist doctrine in the Rhine and Ruhr, are finding increasing popularity. “Dehran Asanov, known as Abdelhamid, was present at numerous lecture events in 2023,” reports the Islamism Report. Sometimes the hate preacher speaks to thousands of sympathizers. He often appears with the web imam Efstathios Tsiounis (Abu Alia). Well-known agitators like Piere Vogel are trying to proselytize young people for an archaic Islamic movement via TikTok, YouTube and Instagram.
On the Salafist online market, influencers like Joe Adade Boateng, the face of “Muslim interactive”, complain about the alleged lying press and a dictatorship of values by those in power. Sentences that are reminiscent of AfD tirades.
Some new Islamist stars appear like gangsta rappers on their channels. This attracts tens of thousands of followers from the younger generation. The Islamism situation speaks of a new lifestyle feeling. Recently it has become fashionable to be a Salafist in order to differentiate yourself. “Influenced by online propaganda and popular extremist preachers, Salafism and Salafist paragons have been able to establish themselves as a counterculture with a lifestyle character,” is the conclusion. A simple good-and-evil ideology “is particularly attractive to those young people who feel overwhelmed by pluralism and choice.”
Around Easter, four young people between the ages of 15 and 16 were arrested who are also said to have become radicalized through the Internet. The accused were taken into custody. According to the Düsseldorf Public Prosecutor’s Office, the young people are said to have agreed to commit a crime (murder and manslaughter). The teen jihadists are strongly suspected of having planned an Islamist-motivated terrorist attack. The IS supporters apparently wanted to attack the Kuffar (infidels) with Molotov cocktails, explosive devices, a machete and knives.
The case proves once again that the perpetrators are getting younger and younger. According to a study by the “Institute for Peace Research and Security Policy” at the University of Hamburg, one in five people who prepared or carried out Islamist-motivated terrorist attacks in Germany between 2016 and 2022 was under 18 years old.
Most recently, a 17-year-old German-Afghan from Burscheid in the Rheinisch-Bergischen district was charged because he and an accomplice from Brandenburg wanted to blow up a small truck filled with gas bottles at the Christmas market in Leverkusen-Opladen on December 1, 2023. The plan was then to go to the ISPK in Afghanistan. In chats via Telegram, the two teenagers had conjured up confused attack fantasies.
Since she was 19, Anouk has been unable to eat without pain without vomiting. Doctors diagnosed Dunbar syndrome. The 25-year-old explains how much it limits her – but she doesn’t give up hope.
There are clear words from North Rhine-Westphalia: The new Islamism report warns of small groups and solo perpetrators – often lured in by jihadist propaganda. In addition, the NRW state security officers have noticed increasing contacts between Salafist preachers and criminal Kurdish-Lebanese clans.
