Raids in Germany over suspected IS collaborators

Over 600 German nationals are known to have travelled to Iraq and Syria to join IS, and the country is expected to absorb over a million migrants this year alone, many from countries where IS and other militant Islamist groups are active.

Deutsche Welle also reported that an association attached to a mosque in the central Tempelhof-Schöneberg district of Berlin, was among the raided buildings.

The head of Germany’s domestic intelligence agency, Hans-Georg Maassen, warned on Tuesday that radical Islamists might be recruiting young asylum seekers to their ranks under the pretext of offering humanitarian help. Maassen said that there was no proof yet that Islamists had infiltrated the refugees.

During the raids, prosecutors also looked for evidence in relation to a 19-year-old Macedonian, who is believed to have joined extremist groups in Syria, and is now fighting there.

Germany was named as a potential target of Islamic State terrorist attacks in a video posted online in August by two German-speaking jihadists claiming to belong to the terrorist group. No arrests were made during the raids on Tuesday. “This is about attacks planned in Syria, and efforts to recruit fighters to carry out these attacks”, Redlich said.

“We are looking for evidence to see whether these allegations are true,” a police spokesman said, as quoted by AFP.