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100 ‘dangerous’ Islamists in Germany

BERLIN: Germany is home to several hundred “potentially dangerous Islamists” including a hard core of around 100 people classed as dangerous, a senior Interior Ministry official said on Friday.

Between 60 and 80 “jihadists” out of some 140 have returned to Germany, who had undergone training in camps in the Tribal Areas on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, State Secretary August Hanning said. “The danger should not be underestimated. The 60 to 80 who have returned make up the overwhelming majority of up to around 100 people whom we class as dangerous,” Hanning told the Tagesspiegel daily’s Saturday edition.

“On top of that there are about another 300 potentially dangerous Islamists. All in all we are talking about a circle of around 1,000 people,” said Hanning, who used to head German foreign intelligence agency, the BND. He added he was worried about the possibility of attacks in the run up to this September’s general election in Germany. “The threats do not mention the elections directly. But in the view of jihadists in Pakistan the election is important because it will determine Germany’s foreign policy in the future,” he said.

“We remember that the attacks in Madrid in 2004 were carried out a few days before elections in Spain,” he said, referring to the commuter train bombings. A number of videos – sometimes in German or with German subtitles – have emerged in recent months warning of future attacks on German soil because of the presence of 3,500 of the country’s troops in Afghanistan. afp

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