Abstract: Security officials are concerned Germany is increasingly in the crosshairs of the Islamic State. German Islamic State recruits interrogated on their return home have made clear the group is seeking to launch attacks on German soil, but their testimonies suggest it has proven difficult for the group to enlist German nationals and residents to hit their home country. German officials are concerned the group is trying to exploit migrant flows to infiltrate non-European operatives into Germany, but so far there is little evidence of such operatives being involved in attack plans on German soil.
When Harry Sarfo arrived in Bremen on a Turkish Airlines flight from Izmir on July 20, 2015, the police were already waiting to arrest him. The son of Ghanaian immigrants who grew up in the Bremen neighborhood of Osterholz-Tenever, Sarfo had left Germany three months earlier. He had traveled through Bulgaria and Romania and then to Turkey, where he crossed into Syria and joined the Islamic State.
Back in Germany, Sarfo refused at first to talk to investigators about his time in Syria. Then, in October, he finally agreed to tell his story. He was visited three times in prison by the German domestic intelligence agency, the Verfassungsschutz.[a] The transcript of the interrogations and several court documents, reviewed by the author, fill several hundred pages.
Sarfo recalled in detail how he was registered as an Islamic State fighter at a safe house of the terrorist group in the city of Tal Abyad in northern Syria.[b] By his own account, he was then sent to Raqqa where he received the usual four-week, military-style training on AK-47 and various other weapons, which was followed by a “special course” training at a camp near At-Thawra and on an island in the Euphrates River.[1] The main goal of this training, which included swimming and diving courses as well as camouflaging exercises, was to prepare to serve in a special Islamic State unit tasked to support fighting forces in “difficult terrain” like Kobane.
Sarfo described how he was then sent on missions in Syria and Iraq and even witnessed executions of captured Assad soldiers in the ancient city of Palmyra. He also appeared in an Islamic State propaganda video carrying the flag of the terrorist group before he was diagnosed with hepatitis and allegedly fled the so-called caliphate after hospital treatment, crossed into Turkey, and returned to Germany.[2]
What most worried the Verfassungsschutz agents was what Sarfo told them happened on the second day he was in Syria. A black SUV stopped next to him, he said. Masked French fighters from the Islamic State’s internal security service Amniyat approached him and asked him if he would be willing to carry out an attack in Europe. Sarfo refused, he told the interrogators. “They wanted to know if I knew anyone in Germany who would be willing to carry out an attack. I also declined.”[3] The previous German recruits tasked with carrying out attacks “had gotten cold feet,”[4] the Islamic State members told him. Now there was a lack of willing candidates from among the German Islamic State contingent, but there were many Frenchmen and Belgians committed to attack, they said.
One month after Sarfo told the intelligence agency about the Islamic State’s plans for Europe attacks, Islamic State operatives did indeed strike at the heart of the continent. A terrorist cell led by Belgian Abdelhamid Abaaoud killed 130 people in Paris. Carnage had come to the streets of Europe—planned in Syria and organized by terrorists who had been able to build up a sophisticated network of support.
In Germany the security agencies watched with great concern the attack in Paris. The question immediately arose—how big is the Islamic State threat to Germany? Were there any Islamic State terrorists in the country ready to strike? What was the role of German jihadis within the terrorist organization? Was there a terrorist cell on its way to Germany?[5] This article examines the Islamic State threat to Germany by drawing on hundreds of pages of interrogation reports and court documents, German government studies on German foreign fighters, and interviews with German counterterrorism officials.
Target: Germany
According to security officials, Germany is in the crosshairs of the Islamic State, even though the country is not involved in the bombing campaign against terrorist targets in Syria and Iraq. This has been evidenced by several propaganda videos calling for attacks in Germany and even threatening Chancellor Angela Merkel. Numerous German militants have been trained in terrorist camps of the so-called caliphate.[6]
Around 820 Islamists from Germany have traveled to Syria and Iraq in recent years. Most of them have joined the Islamic State. At least 140 are said to have been killed; about 14 of them carried out suicide bombings. Of those who went to the war zone around a third have already returned to Germany, with some in custody while others are under intense surveillance.[7]
The German Federal Police (Bundeskriminalamt BKA) has analyzed the biography of 677 of these jihadist travelers.[8] The results show that 79 percent of those who traveled to Syria and Iraq were males and 21 percent female. The youngest traveler was 15 years old, the oldest was 62. The vast majority were between 22 and 25 years old. Sixty-one percent of the jihadis were born in Germany, 6 percent in Turkey, 5 percent in Syria, 5 percent in Russia, and 3 percent in Afghanistan. In total, 64 percent had German citizenship, followed by Turkish, Moroccan, Russian, Syrian, Tunisian, and Afghan nationality. One-hundred and nineteen of the 677 jihadis analyzed by the BKA were converts to Islam. All except 22 were seen as followers of salafism. Two out of three jihadist travelers had ties to known Islamist extremists. Before their departure, many took part in salafist missionary work like the nationwide Qur’an distribution campaign entitled “Lies!” (read).
The Germans of the Islamic State
Of those jihadis who have returned from Syria and Iraq, only a few have been willing to speak about their time with the Islamic State.[9] Nevertheless, over the years, more and more information about the role of German jihadis within the Islamic State has been accumulated, and some of this was revealed during the first trials of returnees from Syria. It became clear that Germans have served in the Islamic State’s media wing, in its internal intelligence agency, and even in special forces groups tasked to carry out difficult missions.
German intelligence now knows of “German villages” in northern Syria, towns or neighborhoods where foreign fighters and their families have settled. Some of them were located near the cities of al-Bab, others in Minbij or Jarabulus.[10] Investigations also uncovered that many former members of the salafist group “Millatu Ibrahim,” which was banned by the German interior ministry in 2012, ended up with the Islamic State. Their number included former rap musician Denis Cuspert (“Deso Dogg”), who took on the jihadist name “Abu Talha al-Almani,” Michael Noack from Gladbeck, and Silvio Koblitz from Essen.[11]
Reda Seyam, a German-Egyptian labeled by some investigators as a “veteran of jihad,” is most likely the highest-ranking German member of the Islamic State.[12] He was present in Bosnia during the civil war there and later was arrested in Indonesia where he was suspected of having played a key role in the al-Qa`ida Bali nightclub bombing in October 2002. Later, Seyam was sent back to Germany and became an influential figure within the salafist community before he left for Syria.
Today, Seyam is said to be the “emir for education” in the “Wilayat Nineveh,” the Islamic State governance in northern Iraq where he allegedly is responsible for “education reform” in the region.[13] Also known as “Dhul al-Qarnain,” Seyam has appeared in propaganda videos (titled “Education in the Shadows of the Caliphate”) and in pictures taken inside Islamic State-occupied Mosul University.[14]
While most German jihadis seem to play a rather low-level role in the organization, serving as guards and supplying fighters with food, weapons, and ammunition, a few apparently took up the position as “commanders.”[15] One of them is a German convert to Islam named Konrad Schmitz (kunya: Abdulwahid al-Almani) who was known as “Konny” back in his hometown of Mönchengladbach and is allegedly still operating with the Islamic State. According to the account of an Islamic State defector, he served as the “emir” of a German Islamic State brigade.[16]
Another German Islamic State member, Samy W. from Walshut-Tiengen,[17] ended up with the Islamic State’s “Anwar al-Awlaki Brigade,”[18] a unit of English-speaking foreign fighters,[19] some of whom are allegedly tasked to plan operations in Europe and North America.[20]
At least two jihadis from Germany worked in the media sector of the Islamic State, translating statements, video files, and audio tapes. One of them, Usman Altaf (kunya: Abu Jandal al-Almani), was a salafi of Pakistani origin from the city of Mannheim. The Islamic State hailed his death in Iraq with a poem that described him as an important figure in propaganda work.[21] The other, Christian Emde, is a convert to Islam from Solingen and is described by German intelligence as an important recruiter responsible for media work who communicated with salafis in Germany via WhatsApp chat groups.[22] He was even interviewed on camera in Mosul by German journalist Jürgen Todenhöfer, who was allowed to travel through Islamic State territory to shoot a documentary.
According to intelligence sources, numerous Islamic State jihadis from Germany have taken part in active fighting in Syria or Iraq.[23] Most have done this as “foot soldiers” or suicide bombers. Others served as guards in Islamic State prisons or questioned newly arrived recruits. The German Federal Prosecution Office (Bundesanwaltschaft) has also started investigations against some foreign fighters for crimes beyond joining a terrorist group or attending a terrorist training camp. Some like German-Algerian Fared Saal (kunya: Abu Luqman al-Almani) from Bonn are being investigated for war crimes and crimes against humanity.[24]
But only one German Islamic State recruit has ever appeared on camera committing an execution. Yamin Abou-Zand, aka “Abu Omar al-Almani” from Königswinter and a former employee at the Telekom company, is seen in a Wilayat Hims clip entitled “Der Tourismus dieser Ummah” (“The Tourism of this Ummah”) next to Austrian Islamic State recruit Mohamed Mahmoud (kunya: Abu Usamah al-Gharib) shooting two alleged Syrian soldiers in Palmyra. In the video, released in August 2015, Abou-Zand also called on Muslims in Germany to join the Islamic State or carry out terrorist attacks in their homeland.[25]
Just a few days after the Charlie Hebdo attack in Paris in January 2015, Nils Donath,[26] a former Islamic State member from Dinslaken in North Rhine-Westphalia, was arrested by German police.[c] After he came back from Syria, Donath had been under constant surveillance. His car had been wiretapped, and police were listening when he told a friend that while in Syria he had been part of an Islamic State unit responsible for hunting down, torturing, and executing alleged spies and traitors. During around 40 interrogations, Donath, who had been an Islamic State member from October 2013 to November 2014 and whose cousin had carried out a suicide bombing for the group, outlined how he had joined the Amniyat, which the prosecution described as the Sturmtrupp or “Gestapo of the IS.”[27] He had been given a car, a special permit to travel around Islamic State territory, an AK-47, and a golden Browning pistol.[28]
Donath told interrogators not only about horrific torture methods and public executions by the Islamic State but also that foreign fighters have the option of enlisting themselves for “external operations,” meaning terrorist attacks in Europe or North America.[29] And he claimed that he met Belgian and French jihadis, including Abaaoud.[30]
Donath’s account and those of Harry Sarfo and other Islamic State defectors create a threat picture that remains very concerning to German security services, one in which the Islamic State is apparently working extensively on trying to set in motion attacks in the West, including Germany.[31] “They want something that happens on several locations simultaneously,” Sarfo stated during his interrogation.[32]
After the Paris attacks in November 2015, German counterterrorism officials wanted to find out if there were any connections between the cell commanded by Abaaoud and German jihadis or if there were any helpers or supporters in Germany. They looked particularly at the situation in Syria itself. Was there any information about a Belgian-French-German connection?
The BKA came to the conclusion that German jihadis, especially a group of salafis from Lohberg (District of Dinslaken in Northrhine-Westphalia) that became known as the “Lohberger Brigade,” had most likely befriended several Belgians and French terrorists.[33] They even shared housing—at least for some time in 2013 and 2014—in the Syrian villages of Kafr Hamra or Azaz.[34] Pictures obtained by German intelligence show French jihadi Salahuddin Ghaitun alongside Hassan Diler, a Turkish national from Dinslaken, and David Gäble, a convert from Kempten. One picture most likely taken in Raqqa even shows Abaaoud next to Hüseyn Diler, Hassan’s 43-year-old brother, also from Dinslaken.[35] Despite these linkages, German security officials have found it difficult to ascertain whether jihadis from Germany were also involved in terrorist plots. Nevertheless, Hüseyn Diler was put on a most wanted list.[36]
Hüseyn Diler, an Islamic State recruit from North Rhine-Westphalia (right), with Paris attack team leader Abdelhamid Abaaoud in Syria in 2015. (Retrieved by Guy Van Vlierden from Islamic State social media)
Infiltration by Foreign Operatives
While it seems the Islamic State has not been able to successfully recruit German nationals or jihadis from Germany to carry out attacks in Europe, the security services are on high alert regarding another potential threat—non-European terrorists being smuggled into Europe hidden among refugees, a tactic already used by the Islamic State in the Paris attacks. With hundreds of thousands of refugees coming to Germany from Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, and other regions since 2015, the concern is that the Islamic State might have already moved terrorists into the country. The BKA has received hundreds of tips regarding possible jihadis hiding in refugee shelters in Germany. In a few cases, arrests have been made. In Brandenburg and North Rhine-Westphalia, two terror suspects, Syrian Shaas E. M.[37] and Tajik national Mukhamadsaid S.,[38] were arrested in recent months. In another case, Farid A., an Algerian Islamic State member, lied when he applied for asylum. He pretended to be a Syrian refugee and was living in a shelter in Attendorn. Pictures allegedly taken in Syria and obtained by German police show him in military gear holding weapons.[39]
Another possible case of an Islamic State operative smuggled into Germany is that of 20-year-old Algerian Bilal C., who was arrested in Aachen in April for petty crimes. While in custody, German security services received information that he had been a member of Islamic State before he came to Germany as a refugee in the summer of 2015. Further investigation revealed that Bilal C. had scouted the Balkan route and other ways of entering Europe and had been tasked with that mission by Abaaoud. Bilal C. allegedly also helped Thalys train attacker Ayoub el-Khazzani secretly enter Europe.[40]
In February, a Syrian refugee named Saleh A. traveled from Düsseldorf to Paris and walked into a police station. There he told investigators about an Islamic State terror plot to carry out attacks in Düsseldorf using suicide bombers and assault rifles. Saleh A. said he had been tasked by the Islamic State leadership in Raqqa to form a terror cell. While being questioned by French police, he named three co-conspirators living as refugees in Germany.[41] After several months of investigation, German prosecution decided to move in. The three Syrians that Saleh A. had named were arrested in June.[42] Despite the case attracting significant global media attention, there is no proof of any real terrorist plot. No weapons or explosives were found, and no charges have been filed yet. German security sources say the case could very likely turn out to be a false alarm.[43]
Islamic State-Inspired Attacks
Even though the Islamic State has set its sights on Germany as a potential target, the terrorist group has not been able to cary out a sophisticated attack in the country. German security officials meanwhile see a high-threat level for the country, especially coming from lone attackers inspired or motivated by the Islamic State. Such cases already exist. In February, 15-year-old Safia S. attacked a policeman at the main train station in Hanover with a kitchen knife. Prior to the attack, the teenage girl had traveled to Turkey possibly to cross into Syria and join the Islamic State. The general prosecutor has labeled the knife attack a “terrorist act” and has confirmed that Safia S. had been in contact with people close to Islamic State.[44] Just two months later, two 16-year-old salafis, Yusuf T. and Mohamed B., attacked a Sikh temple in Essen using a homemade explosive device they had built. Both had been active members of a WhatsApp chat group named “Ansaar Al Khalifat Al Islamiyya” in which at least a dozen young salafis of Turkish-German origin communicated about jihadism.
And on July 18, a 17-year-old refugee named Riaz Khan Ahmadzai, who allegedly was born in Afghanistan, carried out an attack on a train near Würzburg in Bavaria, Southern Germany. Ahmadzai attacked train passengers, including a group of Chinese tourists with a cleaver and a knife, seriously injuring at least four people. After the train was stopped, he left the wagon and attacked a nearby woman walking her dog. The victim was also seriously wounded. The attacker was finally shot by the police.[45] Only a few hours after his attack, the Islamic State-linked Amaq Agency released a video message Ahmadzai had recorded in Pashto in which he said he wanted to carry out a martyrdom operation on behalf of the Islamic State and threatened that “IS will attack you anywhere.” Police later found a hand-written farewell letter to his father and a drawing of an Islamic State flag.[46] On July 24, Germany suffered its first ever jihadist suicide bombing. In the Bavarian town of Ansbach, 27-year-old Syrian refugee Mohammad Daleel detonated a homemade bomb close to a music festival. Fifteen people were injured in the attack. In a video message later released by Islamic State-linked Amaq news agency, Daleel said he was renewing his pledge of allegiance to Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and wanted to carry out a “martyrdom operation in Ansbach” as revenge for the killing of Muslims by Germans.[47]
Conclusion
Whether the source is a lone attacker such as Ahmadzai or Safia S. or a potential large-scale plot, the terrorist threat to Germany remains high. Hans-Georg Maassen, head of Verfassungsschutz, said in May that the threat is “higher than it ever was” with around 260 Islamic State fighters who have returned to Germany and around 90 radical mosques under surveillance.[48] According to German security sources, Islamic State operatives in Syria and Iraq are increasingly reaching out directly to supporters in Germany and Europe to urge them to carry out attacks.[49] It is possible this is because the Islamic State is finding it more difficult to send operatives back to Western Europe after governments there took steps to seal off the Turkey-Greece-Balkan migrant corridor, sharply reducing travel flows and making it more difficult for Islamic State operatives to pose as Syrian refugees.[50]
As jihadist defectors Donath and Sarfo told police and intelligence services, the Islamic State is probably still on the lookout for German terrorist recruits. The Bundeswehr deployment to northern Iraq, the training and support for Kurdish peshmerga forces, and the German Air Force reconnaissance missions over Syria mean that Germany is regarded by the Islamic State as just another “crusader nation”[51] that has to be attacked.
Florian Flade is an investigative journalist for Die Welt and Die Welt am Sonntag. He is based in Berlin and blogs about jihadism at ojihad.wordpress.com. Follow @FlorianFlade
Substantive Notes
[a] Sarfo was interrogated by the Bremen branch of the Verfassungsschutz, the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution.
[b] The details on Harry Sarfo’s time in Syria are from the transcript of his interrogation seen by the author.
[c] At first there was not enough evidence to arrest him, but after the Charlie Hebdo attack, the decision was made to take him into custody. “Festnahme eines mutmaßlichen Mitglieds der ausländischen terroristischen Vereinigung Islamischer Staat Irak und Großsyrien,” Bundesanwaltschaft, January 10, 2015.
Citations
[1] Court documents in the case of Harry Sarfo, obtained by the author.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Florian Flade, “Ich will kein Blut an meinen Händen haben,” Die Welt, June 26, 2016.
[4] Interview of Harry Sarfo on “Frontal 21,” Zweites Deutsches Fernsehen (ZDF), June 16, 2016.
[5] Author interview, German security source, February 2016.
[6] Florian Flade, “Islamist droht in Terrorvideo Angela Merkel,” Die Welt, October 15, 2014.
[7] “Jeder zweite Gefährder aus Deutschland im Ausland,” Deutsche Presse-Agentur, June 23, 2016.
[8] “Analyse der Radikalisierungshintergründe und -verläufe der Personen, die aus islamistischer Motivation aus Deutschland in Richtung Syrien oder Irak ausgereist sind,” Bundeskriminalamt (BKA), December 2015.
[9] Author interview, German security source, February 2016.
[10] Author interview, German security source, April 2016.
[11] Court documents on legal ban of Millatu Ibrahim Organization, obtained by the author.
[12] Author interview, German security source, April 2016.
[13] “IS-Video präsentiert Terrorverdächtigen Reda SEYAM als wichtigen Funktionär,” Verfassungsschutz Baden-Württemberg, June 2016.
[14] Florian Flade, “Reda Seyam: Totgeglaubte leben länger,” ojihad.wordpress.com, March 6, 2015.
[15] Author interview, German security source, February 2016.
[16] Court documents in the case of jihadi Sebastian S., obtained by the author.
[17] Florian Flade, “Dschihad-Rückkehrer Teil 8 – Bin im Kalifat,” ojihad.wordpress.com, April 15, 2016.
[18] Colonel Steve Warren, Operation Inherent Resolve Spokesman, press briefing, April 7, 2016.
[19] Court documents in the case of jihadi Samy W., obtained by the author.
[20] “ISIS Creates English-Speaking Foreign Fighter ‘Anwar al-Awlaki’ Brigade For Attacks On The West: Report,” International Business Times, January 22, 2016.
[21] “Medienfunktionär des „Islamischen Staats“ stirbt bei Kämpfen im Irak,” Verfassungsschutz Baden-Württemberg, May 2015.
[22] Author interview, German security source, April 2016.
[23] Author interview, German security source, January 2016.
[24] Florian Flade, “Kriegsverbrechen: Ermittlungen gegen deutsche IS-Dschihadisten,”Die Welt, February 8, 2015.
[25] Florian Flade, “Behörden identifizieren deutschen IS-Mörder,” Die Welt, August 13, 2015.
[26] Court documents in the case of Nils Donath, obtained by the author.
[27] Jorg Diehl and Fidelius Schmid, “IS-Kronzeuge Nils D. vor Gericht: Gescheitert, erweckt und abgehauen,” Spiegel Online, January 20, 2016.
[28] Florian Flade, “Dschihad-Rückkehrer Teil 6 – Der Jäger,” ojihad.wordpress.com, August 18, 2015.
[29] “Nils D. beschreibt IS-Folterpraktiken,” N-TV, January 22, 2016.
[30] Lena Kampf, Andreas Spinnrath, and Boris Baumholt, “Wussten deutsche Islamisten von Pariser Anschlagsplänen?” WDR, January 14, 2016.
[31] Author interviews, German security officials, 2016.
[32] Court documents in the case of Harry Sarfo, obtained by the author.
[33] Author interview, German security source, February 2016.
[34] Author interview, German security source, April 2016.
[35] Author interview, German security source, April 2016.
[36] Police search warrant for Hüseyn Diler, obtained by the author.
[37] “Haftbefehl wegen Mitgliedschaft in der ausländischen terroristischen Vereinigung Islamischer Staat Irak und Großsyrien (ISIG),” Bundesanwaltschaft, March 24, 2016.
[38] “Festnahme eines mutmaßlichen Mitglieds der ausländischen terroristischen Vereinigung Islamischer Staat Irak und Großsyrien (ISIG),” Bundesanwaltschaft, June 22, 2016.
[39] Florian Flade, “Terrorpläne in der Frühphase?” ojihad.wordpress.com, February 5, 2016.
[40] “Festnahme eines mutmaßlichen Mitglieds der ausländischen terroristischen Vereinigung ‘Islamischer Staat’ (IS),” Bundesanwaltschaft, July 7, 2016.
[41] “Düsseldorfer IS-Anschlagsplan: Drei Verdächtige in U-Haft genommen” Deutsche Welle, June 3, 2016
[42] “Festnahme dreier mutmaßlicher Mitglieder der ausländischen terroristischen Vereinigung Islamischer Staat Irak und Großsyrien,” Bundesanwaltschaft, June 2, 2016.
[43] Author interview with German security source, July 2016.
[44] “Haftbefehl gegen Safia S. wegen des Angriffs auf einen Beamten der Bundespolizei erwirkt,” Bundesanwaltschaft, April 15, 2016.
[45] Police document on the attack, obtained by the author.
[46] Bayerischer Rundfunk, “Attentäter von Würzburg – Klassisches Abschiedsvideo,” July 20, 2016.
[47] Video message by Mohammad Daleel, released by Amaq via Telegram, July 26, 2016.
[48] “Maaßen: Terrorgefahr so hoch wie nie,” MDR, May 2, 2016.
[49] Author interview, German security sources, summer 2016.
[50] Ioannis Mantzikos, “The Greek Gateway to Jihad,” CTC Sentinel 9:6 (2016); author interview, German security source, July 2016.
[51] Interview with Abdelhamid Abaaoud, Dabiq, issue 7, p. 74.
