- Sputnik International
World
Get the latest news from around the world, live coverage, off-beat stories, features and analysis.

Germany Launches New Anti-Terror Force After Daesh Attack Warning

© AFP 2023Members of the German police's so-called BFE+ (Evidence and Arrestment Unit) anti terror unit present a training operation in Berlin's Ahrensfelde district on December 16, 2015.
Members of the German police's so-called BFE+ (Evidence and Arrestment Unit) anti terror unit present a training operation in Berlin's Ahrensfelde district on December 16, 2015. - Sputnik International
Subscribe
The German Government has announced the formation of a new counterterrorism unit in an effort to gather more intelligence on potential terrorists after receiving credible information that Daesh, also known as ISIL, is preparing a terrorist attack in Germany.

The new force — the Beweissicherungs- und Festnahmeeinheit plus (Evidence Collection and Arrest Unit Plus), known as BFE plus — will consist of five groups of 50 agents spread throughout Germany, whose job will be to gather intelligence and make arrests.

Ex-Belgium prime minister Guy Verhofstadt is talking at the entrance of the EP hemicycle in Strasbourg. - Sputnik International
EU Lawmakers Call for Shake-Up of EU Intel Systems to Counter Terrorism

It follows a report, commissioned after the November 13 Paris attacks — in which 130 people were killed and hundreds more injured by radicalized Islamic terrorists — that found that Germany's intelligence and law enforcement agencies lacked the training and skills to deal with a similar attack, which could take place anywhere in Germany.

There was heavy criticism of Europe's intelligence-sharing following the Paris attack, when it was discovered that many of the perpetrators of the attack had been able to cross freely between Syria and Europe — without being checked — despite many being known to some authorities.

Paris Terror Attack — German Links

Many of the Paris attackers were based in the Molenbeek district of Brussels, Belgium, but links were quickly found to Germany.

© REUTERS / Youssef BoudlalResidents of the Brussels suburb of Molenbeek are searched by police vefore taking part in a memorial gathering to honour the victims of the recent deadly Paris attacks, in Brussels, Belgium, November 18, 2015
Residents of the Brussels suburb of Molenbeek are searched by police vefore taking part in a memorial gathering to honour the victims of the recent deadly Paris attacks, in Brussels, Belgium, November 18, 2015 - Sputnik International
Residents of the Brussels suburb of Molenbeek are searched by police vefore taking part in a memorial gathering to honour the victims of the recent deadly Paris attacks, in Brussels, Belgium, November 18, 2015
Police arrested three Islamists believed to have planned an attack in Dortmund, and a fourth man, in Stuttgart, believed to have supplied weapons to the jihadists who carried out the Paris attacks

The threat of terror was further brought home in September 2015, when a 41-year-old self-proclaimed Islamist was shot dead in Berlin after he severely stabbed and injured a policewoman in an incident on a public street in Berlin.

Meanwhile, security officials in Germany are interrogating a man — known only as Harry S, a 27-year-old from Bremen — who returned from Syria where he took part in the execution by Daesh militants of six or seven prisoners. His lawyer told reporters: "He wants to come clean."

He told the officials that Daesh were recruiting Germans, training them and calling on them to carry out terrorist attacks against Germany, which in early December became the latest country to offer support for the airstrikes against Daesh in Syria.

Newsfeed
0
To participate in the discussion
log in or register
loader
Chats
Заголовок открываемого материала