Teenagers allegedly planned Christmas market attack

Extremism - Teenagers allegedly planned Christmas market attack

The two young people arrested on suspicion of terrorism are said to have sympathized with the so-called Islamic State and planned a Christmas market attack with a vehicle and an explosion. They are in custody in North Rhine-Westphalia and Brandenburg.

They are said to have ultimately agreed to "kill visitors to a Christmas market in Leverkusen at the beginning of December by means of a fuel-induced explosion of a small truck", according to the public prosecutor's office in Düsseldorf.

The 15-year-old arrested in North Rhine-Westphalia claims to have already procured petrol. This tip-off had come from German security authorities, explained senior public prosecutor Holger Heming in Düsseldorf. However, no fuel was found during searches. There had been a "very concrete conceptual model" for planning the crime.

However, a preparatory implementation had not yet been objectively established. Accordingly, there is also no evidence to date that they had already procured a small truck. According to information from security circles, both are said to have made concrete arrangements.

IS sympathizers

According to the Düsseldorf public prosecutor's office, the young people are said to have planned their attack based on the goals and methods of the so-called Islamic State (IS). They had planned to leave the country after the attack in order to join the foreign terrorist IS organization "Khorasan Province". This IS offshoot has been carrying out an armed conflict with the militant Islamist Taliban in Afghanistan for several years.

The chief public prosecutor spoke of ideologically based sympathizers. There was no mention of actual membership or actual contact. According to the Attorney General's Office, storage media was seized during searches in connection with the 15-year-old, which still needs to be analyzed.

An arrest warrant had already been issued for him on Wednesday. The Neuruppin district court also issued an arrest warrant for the 16-year-old in the evening, as it announced. He is strongly suspected of having planned and prepared an attack on the Internet with the 15-year-old in North Rhine-Westphalia. The 15-year-old was arrested on Tuesday in Burscheid near Leverkusen, the 16-year-old in Wittstock/Dosse in northern Brandenburg.

NRW Minister of the Interior: "It seemed very concrete"

NRW Interior Minister Herbert Reul (CDU) said on Wednesday: "It seemed very concrete." The tip-off about the young people had come from abroad. Security circles had reported that the 15-year-old from North Rhine-Westphalia had initially targeted a synagogue as well as a Christmas market.

Among other things, the younger boy is accused of conspiracy to commit a crime, namely treacherous murder with base motives, as well as preparation of a serious act of violence endangering the state, the Düsseldorf public prosecutor's office announced on Thursday. According to the NRW Ministry of the Interior, the suspect is a German-Afghan national. According to the Brandenburg Ministry of the Interior, the 16-year-old has Russian citizenship.

Faeser warns of Islamist attacks

Federal Interior Minister Nancy Faeser (SPD) warned against attacks in view of the arrests and the war in Gaza. "Islamist terrorist organizations, but also individual Islamist perpetrators, pose a considerable danger at all times," she told the Redaktionsnetzwerk Deutschland (RND). The Gaza war has a direct impact on the security situation.

"We have taken such consistent action against the Islamist scene in recent weeks because we are keeping a close eye on the changed threat situation." It is thanks to the Federal Criminal Police Office that around 170 channels or content on the Telegram network alone have now been removed "with which repugnant anti-Semitic and Islamist propaganda was spread", said Faeser.

Before the arrests became known, the Office for the Protection of the Constitution had warned that against the backdrop of the Middle East conflict, the risk of possible terrorist attacks against Jewish and Israeli individuals and institutions as well as against "the West" had increased significantly. However, the greatest danger does not come from supporters of Hamas or the pro-Iranian Hezbollah, but from terrorist groups such as Al-Qaeda or the Islamic State (IS).

The young people's alleged plans are reminiscent of the attack at the Memorial Church in Berlin on December 19, 2016. Back then, an Islamist terrorist drove a hijacked truck into the Christmas market. A total of 13 people died in the attack, one of them years later as a result.