A 26-year-old Syrian is believed to be responsible for the assassination attempt at a city festival in Solingen. His motive is still unknown. But he fits the profile of the attackers who became radicalized on the Internet.
The suspect was taken by helicopter to the Federal Prosecutor General in Karlsruhe, who is responsible for the investigation.
Heiko Becker / Reuters
Ten years ago, German security authorities still considered mosques to be the most important places for possible Islamic radicalization. If investigators were lucky, they could infiltrate informants there. Today, this type of surveillance is no longer up to date.
The German Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution is already talking about a TikTokization of Islamism. Platforms in social networks are seen as accelerant for the spread of extremist ideas. There is talk of Islamism influencers and modern hate preachers.
Or as North Rhine-Westphalia’s Interior Minister Herbert Reul put it: “The Internet is increasingly becoming a high-performance engine for radicalization.” Experts assume that almost all Islamist perpetrators have now become radicalized on the Internet. It is not uncommon for hate preachers to have millions of followers on Tiktok, Telegram or Instagram.
It is not yet known whether the suspected attacker from Solingen also became radicalized online and is part of the investigation. But he fits the profile: he is male, young, has not yet been noticed by the authorities as an extremist and is apparently a lone perpetrator. He is said to have only entered Germany at the end of 2022. According to “Spiegel”, he was born in the city of Deir al-Sor in eastern Syria, which was occupied several times by the terrorist organization Islamic State during the civil war.
On Saturday evening, the 26-year-old Syrian turned himself in to the police – around 25 hours after the horrific knife attack at a city festival in which three people were killed and eight others were injured, some seriously.
After the attack in front of the stage in Solingen: The floor is smeared with blood, investigators secure the crime scene.
Volker Hartmann / EPA
IS claims responsibility for knife attack
The “Spiegel” reports that the man’s name is Issa al H. and that he applied for asylum in Bielefeld, also in North Rhine-Westphalia. Because he came from a country in civil war, he was allowed to stay in Germany and was granted so-called subsidiary protection. He is said to have lived in a refugee shelter in Solingen.
Shortly before the Syrian turned himself in to the police, IS published a letter claiming responsibility, which experts such as terrorism researcher Peter R. Neumann classify as genuine. It came via the IS website Amak and was also received by the police. In the letter, the terrorist organization speaks of a “soldier” who attacked a “group of Christians.”
It is still unclear whether IS is only claiming responsibility for the attack or whether the perpetrator also acted on behalf of the terrorist organization. However, IS had called for precisely such attacks with knives because they are comparatively easy to carry out. A letter of confession was usually followed by further messages, such as a video of the perpetrator, his name or details about the attack, explains Neumann.
As terrible and shocking as the attack in Solingen is, it is not surprising. In Germany, too, the authorities have long been warning of an increasing risk of terrorist attacks. “Islamism is continuing to advance,” warned North Rhine-Westphalia’s Interior Minister Herbert Reul. Children and young people are being provided with extremist content on their cell phones “at the push of a button.”
On Saturday evening, police searched the refugee accommodation in Solingen where the suspected perpetrator is said to have lived.
Christoph Reichwein / DPA / Keystone
Spiral of violence through hate sermons
In fact, young people are being infiltrated with jihadist content that is deliberately packaged in a modern way and is aimed at the young people’s personal life situation. When users click on certain content in social networks with words such as jihad or Palestine, the algorithm floods them with new messages on this topic. “The people affected get caught in a spiral that sooner or later leads to them ending up in a closed group,” explains terrorism expert Neumann.
The authorities are having a hard time putting a stop to such hate preachers. If they are banned, they quickly switch to other channels and take their millions of followers with them. However, Islamism researchers such as Susanne Schröter from Goethe University in Frankfurt also see clear shortcomings that have made the establishment of Salafist and Islamist structures in Germany possible in the first place. Prevention, she argues, is just as important as a functioning security structure.
In North Rhine-Westphalia, the authorities were the first and so far only federal state to publish an extremism situation report in May. The authorities’ findings read like a prediction of what has now happened.
Around 2,600 extremist Salafists are known to intelligence services in the state. Of these, 2,000 belong to the political spectrum and 600 to the violent spectrum. Hate preachers have seen the greatest influx of followers in recent years – not only in North Rhine-Westphalia – also because they deliberately target young people.
The Christian Democrat Reul warned several times that there would be no easy or quick solution to this problem. However, he was one of the first state ministers in Germany to point out the significant increase in crime committed by foreigners following the wave of migration in 2014/2015.
