According to the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, the threat posed by Islamist terrorism is “still high” in Germany. A spokeswoman for the authority, said at least 2 080 people currently living in Germany have Islamic terrorist potential.
The RedaktionsNetzwerk Deutschland (RND) reported that 12 150 Islamists belong to the Salafist scene. That is about 1 350 more than were counted in the summer of 2018.
Even after the military defeat of the Islamic State (ISIS) in Iraq and Syria, militia structures were active underground, the agency warned. Europeans are still the main enemy of ISIS.
The agency had knowledge of 1 060 Islamists involved in Syria and Iraq active in Germany in recent years.
While a few hundred of them were in Syrian and Iraqi prisons, about a third of those who had left the country have now returned. Just over a hundred of them participated in fighting or received military training. With the decline of ISIS in Syria and Iraq, the agency has only been recording isolated exits of Islamists from Germany.
Last month, the federal prosecutor’s office in North Rhine-Westphalia discovered an Islamic terrorist cell that is said to have planned and pre-planned attacks in Germany.