German police have arrested five men in anti-terror raids, including an influential preacher dubbed “Islamic State’s number one man in Germany”.
The five men are all suspected of supporting Islamic State, which is also known as Isis, and of operating a recruitment network in Germany for the organisation’s jihadist activities.
The most prominent suspect is an Iraqi man identified as Ahmad Abdulaziz Abdullah A (32), better known as “Abu Walaa”, who offers followers religious and relationship advice through a Facebook page and a dedicated smartphone app.
He was dubbed the “preacher without a face” after a series of internet videos in which he appeared clothed in black, with his back to the camera.
German investigators believe Abu Walaa’s videos and other activities are all a front for other recruiting activities, and that he is one of most senior figures in the country’s radical Salafist scene.
Last July police raided a mosque frequented by Abu Walaa and other Salafists in the western city of Hildesheim after attendees of seminars at the mosque had turned up in Syria.
Police also arrested four other men, ranging from a 50-year-old Turkish citizen to a 26-year-old Cameroon national.
Two of the men are also preachers, suspected of supporting Islamic State and urging young men to travel to Syria. The other two are accused of teaching Arabic and supporting jihadist recruitment efforts in Germany’s western states of Lower Saxony and North Rhine-Westphalia.
‘Returnee’s testimony
It was the testimony of one returnee that prompted Tuesday’s raids. A 22-year-old identified only as Anil O said he had trained with the suspects and then spent time in an Islamic State-controlled area of Syria before fleeing to Turkey and returning to Germany in September.
According to reports, he described Ahmad Abdelaziz A as "Isis's number one in Germany". "He's the worst," said Anil O, according to the Süddeutsche Zeitung daily.
Federal prosecutor Peter Frank described the suspects as “spiritual trailblazers to find and train holy warriors in Germany”.
The preachers gave young men “ideological munition” and were thus, Mr Frank said, responsible for “enthusing so many” for jihad.
The federal justice minister, Heiko Maas, welcomed the arrests as an important step in shutting down Germany’s extremist Islamist scene. The arrests showed that German authorities were “alert and act consequentially against terror suspects”, he said.
German prosecutors estimate that about 900 people have left Germany for Syria and Iraq. Last week, Berlin police arrested a Syrian man on suspicion of receiving instructions from Islamic State to carry out an attack.
