German police arrested a migrant male accused of planning to attack the Israeli embassy as he allegedly attempted to leave the country for weapons training with the Islamic State.
An 18-year-old Russian migrant of Chechen origin was arrested at Berlin Brandenburg Airport on Thursday and was charged Friday on ‘suspicion of preparing a serious act of violence endangering the state’. A political motive at least is presumed and an Islamist motive is being investigated, newspaper Die Welt states its police sources have said.
It is believed he was planning to temporarily leave Germany to link up with the Islamic State in Somalia and had airline tickets for Turkey and Saudi Arabia.
The man, identified only as ‘Akhmad I.’ — in line with German privacy law — is allegedly the third man in an extremist cell of Russian-heritage wanted by police. The other two members have already travelled to Somalia, it is stated.
Libyan National Arrested over Suspected Islamist Terror Plot on Israeli Embassy in Berlinhttps://t.co/ES8PpCUirH
— Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) October 20, 2024
Police claim the man had planned an attack on the Israeli embassy in Berlin, reports Bild. According to that report, he had talked in encrypted messages about his first plan to mail a bomb to the embassy and to launch a knife attack at the building if that failed.
Allegedly, he had attempted to acquire explosives in Germany but failed, and that planning for the attack hadn’t yet reached a “concrete” stage. It is claimed he was planning to go abroad to get “weapons training”, apparently with the Islamic State in Africa, and then to return to Germany.
Akhmad I. has no previous criminal convictions. His homeland of Chechnya is a republic of the Russian Federation in the Caucasus, near the Caspian and Black Seas. It is predominantly Islamic in faith, and Chechen terrorists have launched attacks both in European Russia and Russia itself in recent decades.
The Israeli embassy in Berlin has emerged as a place of focus for extremists. Last year, a Libyan migrant was arrested in Berlin over another claimed terror plot. Earlier in 2024, a Bosnian-heritage migrant opened fire on the Israeli consulate in Munich.
