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full screen The men are suspected of having planned a terrorist attack at the Riksdag. Photo: TT
The men tried to buy weapons several times, but failed.
One of them thought about shaving off his beard so as not to look like an Islamist.
Today, the trial begins in Germany against two Afghans who allegedly planned a terrorist attack at Sweden’s Riksdag.
Ibrahim came from Afghanistan to Germany in 2015, Ramin arrived in 2016. Much later, the German security police received a tip from a foreign security service and began following the men, according to the German news site Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk.
Ibrahim is said to have been radicalized and sought contact with the Islamic State, IS, in the spring of 2023. First, he collected money for IS prisoners in the Al Hol camp in northern Syria and sent 2,000 euros to an IS contact in Iran.
Then Ibrahim and his friend Ramin planned to go to Nigeria to fight IS. But they never managed to get hold of any IS cell there and shelved those plans.
Instead, the IS contact must have put the two friends in contact with a person who is said to be high-ranking within IS Khorasan, an offshoot of IS. When two Swedish football supporters were shot dead in Brussels, Belgium in October 2023, it was IS Khorasan who took responsibility for the deed, as revenge for previous Koran burnings in Sweden.
The Swedish Koran burnings must also have been the driving force for Ibrahim and Ramin. Ibrahim is said to have sworn an oath of allegiance to IS Khorasan and started planning for a terrorist attack in Sweden.
Tried to buy weapons
The first step was to get weapons. Ramin is said to have been in contact with an Albanian man who could sell weapons. But there was never a deal, as there were suspicions that the gun in question would not work.
In this vein, Ibrahim worried that the police might take an interest in him because he looked too Muslim. The IS contact reassured him via their Telegram messaging app chat and said he could shave off his beard. It was considered religiously permissible in this case, for the terrorist act to succeed.
The next step was that in September 2023 the two men went to Czech Karlovy Vary to try to buy weapons on a black market. This time too they failed.
On the way back, they were stopped by the German security service, who followed the men. They seized the cufflinks that Ibrahim and Ramin had bought, and their phones.
Arrested in March
The review of the men’s phones led to their arrest and detention in March 2024, suspected of having planned a terrorist act in Stockholm. At the time of arrest, the men were 23 and 30 respectively.
Their plan is said to have been to “shoot dead policemen and other people with weapons” at Sweden’s Riksdag, according to Bild magazine.
Today, Friday, the trial against the two men began at the Thüringer Oberlandsgericht in Jena, Germany.