– Any day an Islamist attack can also be carried out in Germany, says Thomas Haldenweg, chairman of the Constitutional Protection Agency, to the German ARD.
In recent months, the authority has observed an increased radicalization and willingness to commit crimes among people it monitors in the Islamist milieu. This is connected mainly with two events, namely the war between Israel and Hamas and the Koran burnings in Sweden.
– The digital flood of images in social media, often paired with fake news, raises the emotional level, which can act as a factor for radicalization, Haldenweg continues.
The two arrested teenagers, a 15-year-old and a 16-year-old, are said to have planned an attack on the Christmas market in Leverkusen in western Germany today, Friday.
The plan was to light a firebomb that they intended to place in a van next to the Christmas market to kill visitors. According to German news media, the boys had already bought petrol for the incendiary bomb.
Before deciding on the Christmas market, the boys also considered a synagogue in Cologne as a target. In a closed online forum for young Islamists, the younger of the two has also published a video in which he declares a holy war against the West.
The boys are now under arrest on suspicion of preparing a terrorist attack.
Monitored by the security authority
At the end of October, the police arrested a 29-year-old Islamist in Duisburg who is suspected of planning an attack on a pro-Israel demonstration. In 2013, he traveled to Syria and joined the terrorist sect IS.
Since his return in Germany, the security agency has been keeping an eye on him. Like at least one of the two teenagers now arrested.
As a result of the heightened terrorist threat, this year more police officers, both in uniform and plainclothes, are patrolling the German Christmas markets that have now opened around the country.
That Christmas markets in particular are a target for terrorists is reminiscent of the deadly terrorist attack in Berlin at Breitscheidplatz in 2016, when a terrorist drove a truck into a crowd at the market, killing 12 and injuring around 50 people. Since then, several Christmas markets have had protective barriers and bollards erected to stop vehicles from entering.