The recent terror attacks in Germany may not be a coincidence

In the last few months, Germany has taken some serious steps to contrast antisemitism and Islamist extremism.

In June 2024, after the May 31st Mannheim attack, when several people were wounded and a police officer was stabbed to death by an Afghan immigrant at a Citizen’s Movement Pax Europa, the German authorities announced tough measures.

Interior Minister Nancy Faeser announced:

“It is clear that Islamist agitators who are mentally living in the Stone Age have no place in our country. Anyone who does not have a German passport and glorifies terrorist acts here must be expelled.”

And again:

“We are talking here about real glorification of violence,” she said, adding that online hate posts “fuel a climate of violence that can encourage extremists to commit new acts of violence.”

In July 2024, Germany shut down the Islamic Center Hamburg (IZH) and its subsidiary organizations, citing their radical Islamist objectives and direct control by Tehran. German authorities searched 53 premises across eight German states under a court order.

According to a report by the German newspaper der Spiegel, in addition to spreading Tehran’s narratives and ideology, the German police found documents suggesting the Islamic center acted as a funding pipeline to proxy militias, citing financial endorsements for operations in Yemen with Khamenei’s personal seal.

The Iranian regime strongly criticized the measures, accusing the German authorities of being “politicized and Islamophobic” and warning about “consequences”.

On August 29^th ,2024, German authorities notified the Iranian head of the recently banned Islamic Centre Hamburg (IZH), Mohammad Hadi Mofatteh, that he was being expelled from the country and had two weeks to leave. If by September 11^th, he is still in Germany, he will be deported. Mofatteh has been head of the IZH since summer 2018.

On the evening of August 23^rd, 2024, a mass stabbing took place during a festival in Solingen, when a Syrian immigrant armed with a knife killed three people and injured eight others. ISIS claimed responsibility for the attack. The attacker had reached Germany in 2022 seeking asylum, but his application was rejected, and he was ordered to be deported; however, German authorities lost track of him.

On the night of August 30^th, a woman stabbed and wounded six people on a bus heading to a festival in western Germany. Three of the victims are said to be in life-threatening condition. The stabber, a 32-year-old woman, is a German national, although it is yet unknown to the public if she holds another citizenship.

One interesting element regarding the two most recent cases, despite the country involved and time proximity, is that in both incidents the targets were people attending festivals, just like with the Nova Festival on October 7^th.  Is this a coincidence? Or some sort of warning?

Following the Solingen attack, the German chancellor is said to be preparing new measures to tackle illegal migration, including the cut of all welfare payments for migrants previously registered in other EU countries.

To better understand what is happening in Germany, it is important to keep in mind that the issue of the Islamic center in Hamburg is not a recent one. The place of worship and propaganda center of the Iranian regime has been under scrutiny by German secret services for years. In November 2013, shortly after the October 7^th massacre, the police conducted a series of searches there, for suspected links with Hezbollah.

Back then, the German interior minister, Nancy Faeser, stated: “We have the Islamist scene in our sights. Especially now, at a time when many Jews feel particularly threatened, we generally do not tolerate Islamist propaganda or antisemitic and anti-Israel incitement.”

A year earlier, in November 2022, an article published on the website “Focus on Western Islamism” by Soeren Kern, explained how the German parliament, outraged by the Iranian government’s deadly crackdown on anti-regime protesters, had called for the permanent closure of Hamburg’s Islamic Center, used by Iran’s theocratic regime as a leading “propaganda center” of the Islamic Republic in Europe, and well known for spreading anti-Western, anti-Semitic, and anti-Israel extremist ideology, as indicated by German intelligence officials.

In April 2020, German authorities banned Hezbollah and carried out raids on mosques and centers linked to the group, including Berlin’s al-Irschad mosque, two centers in Bremen and Münster, and a Lebanese community group in Dortmund.

It cannot therefore be ruled out that the attacks in Germany could in some way be linked to the offensive of the German authorities against the Iranian regime. In Tehran, in fact, they know very well how to spread radical propaganda on a broad spectrum, using different channels not necessarily directly attributable to Tehran, feeding the minds of potentially dangerous individuals ready to take action.