Arrest for suspect of planning Islamist attack in Germany

O man is accused of “declaring himself ready to commit a criminal act — murder and homicide”, the Public Prosecutor’s Office in Düsseldorf, Germany, said in a statement.

The investigation is being carried out by the regional anti-terrorism office.

The man “declared he was about to commit an attack of an Islamist nature in messages with an interlocutor in Syria”, details the statement sent to the press.

A pro-Israel demonstration was a possible target for an attack,” he adds.

The suspect was arrested on Tuesday night, at his home in Duisburg, and the police, who searched the apartment, said they had received “indications of a possible attack scenario”.

German authorities were alerted by “a foreign intelligence service”, the Interior Minister of the North Rhine-Westphalia region said today, confirming the information provided on Tuesday by publications such as Der Spiegel and Bild.

According to the same publications, the man was planning a truck attack against a pro-Israel demonstration, but it is not clear whether he had already defined a specific demonstration.

Several media outlets in the country identified the man as Tarik S., a German-Egyptian with a long jihadist past.

Without confirming the identity of the detained man, the German authorities indicate that he is actually Tarik S.

The indictment specifies that the suspect was convicted in 2017, after his return to Germany, “by a juvenile court in Düsseldorf, for belonging to the jihadist organization Islamic State” and that he was in Syria at the end of 2013, where he joined the organization .

These data match the history of Tarik S. who, in Syria, according to Der Spiegel, adopted the combat name of “Osama Al Almani” (Osama the German).

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