German Islamists heading to Pakistan training camps
Monsters and Critics
July 19, 2009, 10:36 GMT
Berlin – The flow of radical Islamists from Germany to training camps in Pakistan has doubled this year, the newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung reported Sunday without naming any source.
German police monitor the so-called homegrown terrorists, mainly from the Turkish and Arab immigrant communities, who volunteer to fight on the Islamist side in Pakistan or Afghanistan.
'This year we have so far logged 40 Pakistan-bound departures among the German Islamist crowd,' a senior German security official was quoted saying. In the corresponding months of last year, only half as many departed for training.
The men commonly used flights via Syria, Egypt or Turkey. Many returned home to Germany after spending time in the camps.
Security forces forecast earlier this month that terrorists might try to unnerve the German public in the run-up to the September 27 general election, with the intention of obtaining a German military withdrawal from Afghanistan.
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