The city of Gera is more than 25 miles south of Berlin and far from the pulse of the German capital. With its 90,000 inhabitants, it is a relatively small town where neighbors greet each other, say people in the area.
But here two Afghan men, 23 and 30 years old, are suspected of having planned a terrorist attack in Stockholm on behalf of the Islamic State, IS. They were arrested in a residence on Tuesday and today they were detained in Karlsruhe.
– One of the owners of a wine bar in the area told us that his friend is a neighbor of the suspected terrorists. She has looked down on their balcony on several occasions and must also have heard this effort. After that, she was described as worried and shaken, says TV4 Nyheterna’s Kristin Stein on location in Gera.
Today 19:16
German police spied on the two terror suspects for months
“Talking about this”
Another restaurant owner says that after all it has been quiet in the area.
– Some guests are talking about this tonight, but they are not worried, he says.
It is unclear how the men know each other, but at the moment they are not believed to be related. The 30-year-old man is said to have declared himself a member of the Afghan IS branch Islamic State Khorasan Province in August 2023. According to the German public service channel Tagesschau is it the same IS branch that 45-year-old Abdesalem Lassoued, who shot dead two Swedes in Brussels last autumn, belonged to.
The 30-year-old is said to have been tasked with carrying out an attack in Europe in response to Koran burnings in Scandinavian countries. Stockholm must then have been selected as the target.
The authorities have not wanted to answer how long they were in Germany.
Suspect since 2023
According to the public prosecutor’s office, the two suspects then planned together to carry out the attack armed with firearms in the vicinity of the Swedish parliament. There they would shoot dead policemen and other people.
– Even here in Germany quite a lot of eyes have been directed at Gera and this incident. Among other things, according to German media information, it has emerged that German authorities have received suspicions about these people as early as 2023, where they were investigated for terrorist financing. So they’ve been keeping an eye on them for a while, says Kristin Stein.
They are said to have collected almost 23,000 Swedish kroner in donations and then sent the money to IS terrorists in Syria via an intermediary.
According to terror researcher Hans Brun, the plans are not surprising.
– That the police become a target is simply due to the fact that it is the police who protected the Koran burners when they exercised their constitutionally protected freedom of expression, he says.
It is currently unclear how the German authorities managed to locate the men. According to German media, the plans for terrorist acts were brought to attention during the investigation against them.
The men’s homes and workplaces have been searched, phones and computers have been confiscated.