29 September 2015•Update: 29 September 2015
BERLIN
The refugee influx makes Germany more vulnerable to religious-extremist terrorism, and growing anti-immigrant climate in the country may lead to emergence of new far-right terror groups, German intelligence chief warned on Tuesday.
Dr. Hans-Georg Maassen, president of the domestic intelligence BfV, has expressed concern over the large influx of refugees in recent weeks, saying around 10 thousand refugees were entering Germany per day, posing a great challenge to authorities.
“If the acceptance of refugees takes place in an uncontrolled manner where we are unaware of who is entering the country, this can lead to security problems,” Maassen warned, at a keynote speech at the 12th Handelsblatt Conference on Security Policy and Defense Industry.
“Right now we have no specific indication that there are also combatants among the refugees, combatants who plan to carry out attacks in Germany, but this is still absolutely possible,” he said.
Maassen told that their analyses point out that potential combatants would more likely to use other ways to enter Europe, without risking life in dangerous routes used by the refugees, but stressed that they were taking into account all possibilities.
“There are indications that some people among the refugees were involved in the fighting in Syria and there are some who potentially fought for IS [Daesh],” he said.
Maassen warned that in recent weeks radical Salafist groups have stepped up their activities in Germany and were trying to approach asylum seekers who entered the country, in order to recruit new members.
Salafists constitute the majority of the foreign fighters who travelled from Germany to Syria and Iraq to join the Daesh, he said.
So far around 740 extremists from Germany are believed to have traveled to Syria and Iraq, and 100 of them have lost their lives in fighting or suicide attacks, Maassen added.
Far-right exploits refugee influx
German intelligence chief has also expressed concern over the rise of propaganda activities of far-right groups and their violent protests against refugees and asylum shelters.
“Right wing extremists see refugee problem as a great opportunity for gaining ground among the main stream; they try to play on the fears and concerns of the citizens, especially citizens who are the neighbors of the refugee camps,” he said.
The anti-refugee campaigns and demonstrations were largely conducted by the far-right National Democratic Party of Germany, or NPD, and anti-Islam PEGIDA movement.
Maassen warned against further radicalization among the right-wing extremists and stated that they have carried out 408 attacks against asylum seekers this year, including arson attacks targeting asylum shelters. There were 162 such attacks in 2014, and 58 in 2013.
As an example of radicalization in the far-right, he mentioned the recently uncovered group The Oldschool Society (OSS), which he said planned attacks against asylum shelters.
“I see these as a clear indication that Germany can have a right-wing terrorism problem,” he said.
- Record number of refugees
Germany’s federal interior minister Thomas de Maiziere said on Tuesday that a record number of refugees entered the country in September, which will mark the highest level in ten years.
He did not give exact numbers and said official statistics will be announced in the coming days.
Bild daily reported that around 230,000 asylum seekers came to Germany on Sept. 5-27, nearing the figures for the whole of 2014, when 280,000 arrived.
Around 169,000 refugees arrived in the southern German state of Bavaria this month alone, Bavaria’s state premier Horst Seehofer said Tuesday.
Germany expects a record 800,000 asylum applications this year, four times the last year's total.
The surge in asylum applications has been exploited by far-right and populist parties recent months, which organized weekly rallies against immigration and refugees across Germany.
