well France has joined the US and the UK
in confirming that intelligence sources
indicate the attack was carried out by a
branch of the so-called Islamic State
group in Afghanistan known as Isis K
just last week a German police arrested
two suspected members of the group
they're accused of planning an attack on
Sweden's Parliament and retaliation for
Kuran burnings that happened there now
German interior Minister Nancy faser has
warned that Isis K poses Germany's
greatest islamist threat here has more
on the
group Terror in Moscow the latest attack
by ISIS K and experts warn probably not
the
last the terror group is named after an
old term for a region that spreads over
parts of Iran Turkmenistan and
Afghanistan Isis K emerged in eastern
Afghanistan in late 2014 and became
known for extreme brutality it survived
even as the so-called Islamic State in
Syria and Iraq has largely been defeated
it supports Itself by local donations
taxation extortion and
smuggling in 2021 Isis K claimed an
attack in Afghanistan the bombing at the
Kabul Airport killed over 170 Afghans
and 13 US soldiers the group doesn't
just Target the West it also staged an
attack in Pakistan last year and a
bombing in Iran earlier this year that
killed more than 100 people experts fear
that Isis K is preparing more attacks in
several countries German Rogers ranking
M Smith ladies and gentlemen of the and
the risk of attack emanating from
Afghanistan is increasing ISS Isis Coran
retains the capability and the will to
attack us and Western interests abroad
in as little as 6 months with little to
no warning France and Germany have also
warned that Isis K is actively preparing
Terror actions in
Europe this particular group which
appears to have been involved in this
attack has made several attempts on our
own soil in recent moments
so as a precautionary measure but withed
and elements we decided to increase Vig
level this all comes as Paris gears up
to host the Olympic Games this summer
Germany's also set to host the Euro 2024
soccer tournament millions of visitors
are expected putting intense pressure on
authorities to keep the festivities
safe well Aaron Y zelan is a senior
fellow at the Washington Institute for
near East policy he's an expert on
Jihadi movements such as uh Islamic
State welcome to
DW if we cast our minds back what eight
or nine years there was a whole period
where we seem to have one is or alqa
attack after another are we about to
enter another such period do you
think it's definitely a possibility
we've seen over the last year or so that
uh the Islamic State horse Province or
ISP has been building up its capacities
internationally first targeting local
countries in Afghanistan and Pakistan
expanding it out to more Regional States
like Iran and turkey obviously we've
seen the most recent attack in Russia
and the Islamic State uh huran province
has been targeting uh different
countries in Europe as well but so far
law enforcement has been able to stop
them but if they continue with this pace
it would not be surprising if within the
next six months they're able to um do
something
unfortunately and is there a sort of
unifying purpose because as I recall
with Al-Qaeda it was all about the the
the caliphate what do these guys
want oh well the huran province is just
uh another part of the Islamic State the
same group that um we saw in Iraq and
Syria that were attacking people in
France in Belgium in the UK and Germany
and elsewhere in the past um it's just
that the external operations AR
um and the center of gravity for it has
moved from Syria from you know around
the 2014 to 2019 time period and over
the last five years it's it's moved
towards uh Afghanistan and while the
group has been degraded within
Afghanistan over the last couple years
by the Taliban uh the group has been
able to expand its uh sort of networks
outside of it and and doing these
attacks in a broader
scale and what's that beef with Russia
well for one uh just from the local
perspective within Afghanistan the
Russians have been engaging with the
Taliban government and ISP has viewed
the Taliban as an apostate regime um
then besides that you also have other
geopolitical factors such as Russia
bombing Isis in Syria as well as
Russia's Vagner forces are now the Recon
formed uh African core has uh been
fighting them within Mali um and then
besides that just from an ideological
perspective just like uh Western
countries um you know they view Russia
as Crusaders just Eastern
Crusaders I'd like to play you a sound
bite from Russian President Vladimir
Putin and then get your
reaction we know a crime was committed
by radical islamists who follow an
ideology of the Islamic World itself has
been fighting for
centuries it is necessary to find out
why after committing their crime the
terrorists tried to go to Ukraine who is
waiting for them
there ion why zelin um Vladimir Putin
there seems to be trying to link what
appears to be the action of is Terrorism
with the conflict in Ukraine does that
sound
credible I don't think so it appears
more for local political audiences and
disinformation than anything there's no
evidence to suggest that any ISP
networks have ever had any links to
Ukraine at all um and also uh how do
they actually know which direction
they're specifically going since there's
a large uh amount of space between
Moscow and um Ukrainian
territory yeah the attack was
reminiscent of some of the worst Terror
attacks in Europe like the bat Clan
attack in Paris in
2015 what sort of planning time and
effort would have gone into
this it's it's clear that you know
they've been planning this for a while
it's likely that the individuals
involved in the attack likely cased the
actual concert hall ahead of time and
and looked at it to see what they can do
and how much they can potentially get
away with um and this also comes on the
heels of the large scale bombing attack
that iskp did in Iran earlier this year
so they've increasingly been able to
have extremely deadly attacks through
these broader networks of individuals
that they've been able to recruit likely
train um as well as facilitate uh
Financial transfers to help them out
plan such a a sophisticated operation
right so the the the the period of of
relative uh quiet if I can put it that
way that that we've enjoyed over these
last few years what do you put that down
to is that is that down to to military
intervention um in uh Syria for instance
or is that down to the the work of the
various national security
agencies I think it's a combination of
uh the military campaign in Iraq and
syri Syria and taking is out of
territory there as well as degrading its
capacities and thus the center of
gravity of these external operations had
to move to another Province quote
unquote of the Islamic State but also uh
great uh law enforcement of of local
authorities in many different countries
and intelligence sharing um between them
it's important
to remind people that the US actually
warned Russia uh weeks ahead of time
that they had credible intelligence that
there was the potential for an attack
and yet days ahead of time uh President
Putin uh scoffed off as if it wasn't a
serious thing um so uh you know
hopefully you know the Russian
government heeds those warnings in the
future and now uh here on the continent
of of Europe we have the Paris Olympics
on their way and the European football
championships both massive crowd events
the sorts of spectaculars uh that
terrorists would like to pull off
yeah I mean we've seen in the past that
they've tried to uh you know be
influential on you know large scale
events as well as surrounding holiday
times um so I wouldn't be surprised if
we saw specific plots trying to Target
this but you know the hope is that
through uh law enforcement greater
intelligence sharing amongst different
allies and partners um that you know
they will be thored as most of the plots
so far have been thed um in the last few
years good talking to you thank you so
much for joining us Aaron y zalin from
the Washington Institute for near East
policy thanks for having
me German interior Minister Nancy faser
has warned that the so-called Islamic
State affiliate known as Isis K
currently poses the greatest islamist
threat in Germany she says the threat of
islamist terrorism in Germany remains
acute just last week German police
arrested two m is thought to be linked
to the group they're suspected of
planning a terrorist attack around the
Swedish parliament in retaliation for
Quan
burnings more on this with DW political
correspondent Julia sardelli Julia tell
us more about the interior
Minister's uh labeling of this group as
being such a big islamist threat here in
Germany well we know from terrorism
experts but also from intelligence
services in Western countries is that
Isis K is uh ready and capable of
attacking Western interests not only in
their region but also uh outside we've
seen the attack happening in Iran we
seen now the attack in Moscow that seems
to be linked to Isis K and we also know
that Isis K has uh a network that is
capable of acting quickly and also wants
to expand and project its power outside
of its own turf and we've seen also a
few attacks being foiled in Europe some
of them in Germany for example the two
arrests that we've seen happened last
week of two Afghan uh citizens uh being
arrested for a planned attack against
the Swedish Parliament but there were
also arrests carried out uh between
December in January in Germany for a
planned attack against the Cologne
Cathedral in the west of Germany so we
see that German authorities including
the intelligence services are looking
into the threat posed by ISIS Cas
specifically and they are also being
able to foil uh a few of these attack up
to four uh last year so looking into the
threat and what else are officials
actually
doing well uh we have seen for example
in France that the threat terrorism
Threat Level has been raised to the
maximum level that has not happened in
Germany but that also has to do with the
fact that the system to uh measure the
threat level is different here what we
know is that authorities in Germany had
been on on high alert already since
October 7th as they had seen that
islamist networks had been mobilizing a
lot since the Hamas terror attack
against Israel and the conflict in Gaza
we also know that now the Isis K threat
has come on top of this and that Isis K
is uh bringing forward a new threat
which means that militants aren't
looking at individuals carrying out
attacks and planning attacks but they
have a bigger Network that is able to
coordinate more broadly so definitely
German authorities intelligence Services
looking into this threat with quite a
lot of attention Julia selli thanks for
the
update former state Secretary of the
Interior Ministry G Kings joins us he's
legal policy spokesman for the CDU CSU
parliamentary group welcome to DW what
makes Isis K an acute Terror threat in
Germany to use the interior Minister's
words obviously this part of Isis is um
the one part that is still the most
capable the most active and it's um very
frightening to all of the world and I
think the fact that not only Germany but
also other European countries have
increased their Terror alert level also
shows how absurd the the allegation in
Russia is that maybe this is some some
kind of plot of by by Ukraine so it
proves actually that the rest of the
world the whole of the world believes
that this group of Isis uh is a really
um credible threat to all of us and um
what they could do in in Russia they
could also at least try to do in other
countries including Germany and we have
seen or you have mentioned the plant
attack in in in Sweden we had a plant
attack in in Cologne in Germany so this
is the part of Isis we have to look upon
very closely how do terrorist groups use
Germany to launch or plan attacks as you
put it in other
countries I don't think they only use
Germany but um um since my time um in my
service in the um in the home Affairs
Ministry um I was very um concerned by
the lack of of capabilities that we have
not in the technical sense we have great
people in our security agencies one of
the best in the world but uh our laws
are very strict when it comes to also do
uh signal intelligence for example and
there we are much dependent on um the
insights of other security agencies from
other countries I think this has to be
manded and we had this problem in our
Coalition when we had a coalition part
of social Democrats that would not allow
us to do what we had to do to protect
our people even even better than we were
able to do and the problems go back
really far I mean the 911 attacks there
was the the Hamburg cell for example of
students from Arab countries who became
key operatives in the attacks in the
US Yes again we have to take this very
seriously Germany has very good
has very good um security agencies that
also cooperate very well with other
countries also German agencies have
given important information to other
agencies but our signal intelligence is
uh not in a shape that it should be um
according also to to the to the legal
restrictions that we have here so what
needs to change in in your
opinion we have to amend all laws we
have to allow at least these kind of of
um signant intelligence measures that
other countries have to look into um
digital communication more closely can
be done countries that have these um
legal rights legal competences are also
rule of law states so we should not be
afraid to amend um our laws to be even
better prepared for such attacks it's
certainly only one reason um we have
also be have a public that has to be um
more on the lookout when it comes uh for
um um possible terrorist threats but I
think um Germany has great agencies has
great security agencies and so I'm I'm
quite optimistic that we can do it but
we have really to make an update of our
of our legal framework German politician
G Kings thank you very much for joining
us here on DW
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