Half of Syrian Jihadis had already committed crimes in Germany Schools in Frankfurt are increasingly becoming a field of activity for radical Salafists. Interior Minister Boris Rhein expressed concern about the intensified efforts aimed at recruiting people in the schoolyards for the “holy war”. In 6 schools in Frankfurt, mainly in vocational schools, attempts to recruit volunteers in order to support the Islamist mercenaries in the Syrian civil war have been observed. In the case of 4 students from one single school, the Salafists have been so successful that these 4 youngsters were already on their way to Syria. The Interior Minister said that according to the findings of the police, 20 men and 3 women aged between 16 and 34 from the Rhein-Main, and a total of 30 individuals from Hessen as a whole travelled to Syria this year alone. The majority of them were Muslims born in Germany, and younger than 25. Six of them were attending school, and four were still underaged. Rhein warned that a “new dimension” was reached with the emergence of Salafist recruiters at schoolyards under the guise of freedom of religion. In many cases, parents, friends and teachers had already become suspicious when a youngster was turning radical, but the inhibition threshold in relation to dealing with government agencies was still too high. The task of the security services would be now to prevent any candidate from leaving the country, something which has already been successfully implemented in 3 cases, or to keep returners under surveillance for a long time in order to prevent possible violent acts in Germany. According to information given by the Minister, two youngsters from Hessen have already been killed, and at least three more returned after having spent a certain time in the country torn apart by the civil war. He could not specify whether those three returned due to having become disenchanted with the religious/extremist world-view, or if they became even more involved in this ideological scheme during their activities with the radical Islamist groups of mercenaries. From Rhein’s point of view, it is frightening how fast the radicalization of Muslim youngsters took place. Some became convinced in just a few weeks that they had to take part in the “holy war”. Some of the youngsters, but not all, had performed badly at school and had been absent from classes for long periods of time, while those who did not attend school were living on unemployment welfare payments or had casual employment. Authorities stated that “none of them had a solid professional grounding”. Half of those who travelled to Syria had already attracted attention to themselves by having committed diverse criminal activities such as theft, robbery and violent acts. 80% of them were born in Germany, and the majority of them had German nationali
Posted on: Mon, 11 Nov 2013 23:14:00 +0000
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