ISIS and Extremist Right Groups in Germany – Any Connection?

ISIS and Extremist Right Groups in Germany – Any Connection?

A line of Syrian refugees crossing the border of Hungary and Austria on their way to Germany. Hungary, Central Europe, 6 September 2015.

This post is also available in: heעברית (Hebrew)

Hans-Georg Maassen, head of Germany’s domestic intelligence agency, claimed that German authorities are preparing for several terror attack scenarios on Germany as pressure builds on ISIS in Iraq, he told German public radio Deutschlandfunk. The factors that have to be taken in consideration are obviously ISIS related but also right-wing extremists.

“That is what we want to prevent and we are preparing ourselves accordingly,” Maassen said. The number of European ISIS fighters who have returned home as a result of ISIS military retreat has been small so far, Maassen said. “We are also concerned that there could be right-wing terrorist individuals or individual cells in Germany,” he said. Specifically, Maassen named the “Old School Society” as a possible threat. He said the group, which has a nation-wide network, planned to carry out attacks on refugees and Salafists.

Back to the ISIS and more commonly-known threat. According to stats on homelandsecuritynewswire.com, the number of Germans who have traveled to Syria and Iraq has seen a steady decline beginning from the summer of 2014 to August of this year.

“My impression is that the fighting in Syria and Iraq is currently not so attractive for German jihadists,” he explained, adding that it could be “too dangerous to get there”.

U.S. military sources say that many of the foreign fighters among the 4,500 jihadists in Mosul will probably form the core of the holdout jihadist force, preferring to die fighting rather than surrendering.