After raiding refugee shelters in three towns in the northern state of Schleswig-Holstein this week, German authorities detained three suspected Islamic State (ISIS) members linked to the same group that carried out the November 2015 Paris attacks.
Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere confirmed that three Syrian nationals were arrested on Tuesday, and that one was found to have joined ISIS a year ago.
The young men were said to have entered Germany in November with the intention of “carrying out a previously determined order [from ISIS] or to await further instructions.”
They are thought to have traveled through Turkey and Greece, using fake passports issued by ISIS along with U.S. cash and mobile phones loaded with a communications app.
De Maiziere linked the individuals to the Paris attacks.
“There is every reason to believe that the same trafficking group used by the Paris attackers also brought the three men who were arrested to Germany,” he said [1], adding that their forged passports had also come from the “same workshop.”
More than 200 officers from the German Federal Police and agents from the GSG9 special operations unit took part in the coordinated raids.
Germany has remained on edge following several violent attacks [2] in July, including a suicide bombing attempt near a music festival, and an ax-and-knife attack on a commuter train, both later linked to ISIS.
German police have ramped up security efforts since the attacks. In raids on refugee facilities in the western state of North Rhine-Westphalia last month, two men were arrested on suspicion of connection to jihadist movements. One is suspected of planning an attack at a soccer game.
After those arrests, Rainer Wendt, a police officer and head of the German Police Trade Union, called for increased monitoring of asylum seekers.
“What happened here in North Rhine-Westphalia showed that it’s right to observe these people and, at the right time, to take them into custody,” he said.
Last weekend De Maiziere warned in an interview [3] with the Bild daily that there were 520 “potential” Islamist attackers in the country, as well as a further 360 “relevant persons” under surveillance, closely affiliated with potential attackers.