Germany on High Alert: Uncovering the Shadows of Radicalization
In the last three weeks, there have been three attacks in Germany, which once again brought internal security, terrorism and the fight against Islamism back to the top of the country’s agenda. You will hear and read conversations and analyzes about these issues everywhere in Germany – in the media, in the school yard while waiting for your child, on the tram on the way to work and in the queue, waiting turn for the morning pretzel.
Three events have unleashed waves of political and public reaction, one of the results of which is the entry into force of border checks at all German land borders from next Monday:
- On August 23, a 26-year-old Syrian man killed three and injured eight people in a knife attack during the Solingen city holiday. Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attack.
- A few days later on September 5, the day that marked the 52nd anniversary of the bloody Olympic Games in Munich, a young man opened fire on the Israeli Consulate General in the city and on surrounding buildings. It later emerged that the perpetrator was known to the Austrian authorities as a suspected Islamist.
- A few hours later, a 29-year-old Scot attacked a police station in Linz, Germany with a machete. Investigators said there was evidence of an Islamic motive.
After years of silence, is the threat of terrorist attacks rising again in Europe?
Many experts on the Old Continent are united behind the thesis that the danger of terrorism in Europe has increased since the start of the war between Israel and Hamas. According to German terrorism expert Rolf Tophofen, she provides a new motivational boost:
In 2019, the Islamic State lost a huge part of its conquered territory in Syria and Iraq, but the terrorist organization is reorganizing again.
In an interview with German TV station ZDF, terrorism expert Peter Neumann from King’s College London said that there have been 21 attempted and 6 actual jihadist attacks in Western Europe in the last ten months, which is 4. times more than in 2022 According to Rolf Tophofen, the most dangerous terrorist organization today is still the Islamic State. It has created branches, ramifications, small and large cells in different parts of the world.
- “The most dangerous cell is the so-called Islamic State of Khorasan, which comes from Central Asia. In the spring of this year, for example, it carried out the most serious attack in Moscow, where more than 100 people died.
- While in the past, for example, al-Qaeda tried to carry out terrorist operations with the help of commandos, today we have to accept that it is increasingly a radicalized or self-radicalized individual criminal. Today we are witnessing a new generation.
- It is interesting that the creed of the Islamic State – this should not be forgotten – has always been to attack the infidels with a stone, with a knife, with a car … with whatever you have at hand. Everyone has knives at home, some weapons can be found on the Internet, you can look on the shelves in shops and find a suitable weapon for an attack, and you can also make what you need for a terrorist attack on yourself,” said the terrorism expert.
If in the recent past radicalization took place partly in mosques in Europe, today it is a growing process taking place in the Internet space, where there are many applications that offer encrypted conversations. They send content about the war in the Gaza Strip, for example, and the purpose of this content is to evoke emotions in the person on the other side of the computer, somewhere in Europe.
The main emotion to evoke is anger.
“Terrorists, whether it is the propaganda of a terrorist organization like the Islamic State, use this digitization perfectly. On the Internet and in social networks there are thousands of videos, appeals, propaganda videos. The most elderly, who tend to self-radicalisation, already of young people aged 20-30. Young people are the target, they are recruited and encouraged to carry out terrorist operations through these platforms,” said Rolf Tophofen.
The new generation of self-radicalizers are instructed – again online – on how to carry out the deadly attacks most effectively.
How does radicalization happen?
The main topic for experts’ analyzes is radicalisation, but is the reverse process – de-radicalisation – possible?
Mouhanad Khorshid is a professor of Islamic theology and works with Islamists in prisons in Germany and Austria. The prisoners are aged between 16 and 24 and each attack is planned with knives or explosives. In an interview with German TV station ZDF, Professor Khorshid described the profile of youth who are vulnerable to self-radicalisation:
At first, it is the emotional aspect, not the religious aspect, that plays the decisive role in the process of self-radicalisation. At the bottom are stories about “the injustice brought about by the Western world”.
Professor Khorshid analyzed that more young people who talk about discrimination have not experienced it personally, but identify with the stories of discrimination in the “bad” Western world. The big question that young people who are prone to self-radicalisation ask themselves is “Who am I?”.
- When they are in their home countries, these young people feel out of place, they feel like foreigners, because of the life they have in Germany or in another European country.
- On the other hand, when they are in Germany, they feel different again and the big question for them is “Where is my home?”.
- Then some of them find their home in the Internet space, where they are accepted.
This, according to Professor Khorshid’s thesis, also explains the self-radicalisation of increasingly younger people, because it is easy to reach them on social networks. Alternatives are needed to show the other perspective of the youth.
How can prevention work be done?
Even tighter border controls and refusing to admit questionable people into Germany will not lead to a complete solution to the security problem. The world, with its beautiful and ugly face, is a click away – on the web.
That is why, in the long term, experts’ recommendations are to focus on prevention and deradicalisation. Behind these recommendations stands the Federal Government and the governors in the individual German states.
According to the data of the Office for the Protection of the Constitution (German counter-intelligence – ed.), there are about 2,380 Muslims in Berlin alone, and about 980 of them are prone to violence. In Germany as a whole, the number of Islamists (again according to the service) is 27,200 Surveillance of high-risk individuals is difficult, because if they are suspected of preparing an attack, they sometimes have to be monitored around the clock , experts. say.
Prevention works on three levels:
- The first is basic prevention, which is about the transmission of basic democratic values.
- Secondary prevention is aimed at the groups defined as being at risk.
- The third level is working with people who have already radicalized or have self-radicalised.
In Berlin alone, almost 2 million euros have been invested in prevention programs.
Those who suspect loved ones are self-radicalising can find help at the advice center of the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees. According to the counseling center team, warning signs are changes in the young person’s life, withdrawal from family, friends and classmates, or not allowing criticism of his own interpretations of Islam.
Similar prevention programs have been developed not only in Berlin, but also in other German states. But the subject of their work gained even more popularity after the deadly Solingen attack.
Those working in national security believe that prevention and de-radicalisation programs are not a panacea. Terrorism expert Asiem El Difrau told German TV station BR 24 about individuals who were considered deradicalized in Austria, but who were then preparing attacks again. But according to him, on the whole, the programs are still working successfully.
Experts support the idea that young people who are prone to radicalization need to be heard and feel needed, not rejected, by a society they do not belong to. And that is why we need a lot of social workers and a lot of work – challenges that many countries on the Old Continent are facing.