Germany detains teen with ‘extremist Islamic views’ over suspected attack plot
Suspect, 17, planning ‘serious violent’ assault arrested last week, authorities say; local media reports he intended to attack Christmas market with a truck
German prosecutors on Tuesday said that a 17-year-old had been arrested for plotting an Islamist terror attack, with media reports saying he wanted to target a Christmas market.
He is suspected of “preparing a serious violent attack” and “conspiracy to commit murder,” and had “extreme Islamist views,” said the prosecutors in the northern state of Schleswig-Holstein.
The suspect is a German national and was arrested on Wednesday last week in the town of Elmshorn, they said.
The Bild daily reported that the suspect had planned to attack a Christmas market with a truck.
In December 2016 a truck rampage at a Berlin Christmas market killed 12 people, the deadliest jihadist attack ever committed in Germany.
Alongside several other countries, Germany has been on high alert for Islamist attacks since the Palestinian terror group Hamas’s October 7, 2023, assault on Israel that killed 1,200 people and sparked the ongoing war in the Gaza Strip.
Authorities say they have foiled several planned attacks.
However, three people were killed and eight wounded in a knife attack at a street festival in the western city of Solingen in August, allegedly carried out by a Syrian asylum seeker and claimed by the Islamic State group.
In June, another knife attack killed a policeman in the town of Mannheim, with an Afghan national as the prime suspect.
