Central Asian Islamic State terrorists become the latest threat to Germany

German and Dutch security officers arrested nine Islamic State members on July 7 in a major sweep operation in both countries. Seven of the arrested were allegedly in Germany planning a new wave of terrorist attacks in the country. The German federal prosecutors charged the group with forming a “domestic terrorist group” and with supporting the Islamic State.

German prosecutors identified the men arrested there as Ata A., a citizen of Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan national Abrorjon K., and five citizens of Tajikistan — Mukhammadshujo A., Nuriddin K., Shamshud N., Said S. and Raboni Z.

North Rhine-Westphalia’s interior minister Herbert Reul said “the followers of the Islamic State apparently believed that they could go about their terrorist daywork in our country completely undisturbed. Scouting, searching for targets, procuring weapons and money, all in secrecy”.

In the Netherlands, the public prosecution service said a 29-year-old Tajik man and his 31-year-old Kyrgyz wife, who had lived in the country since last year, were arrested on suspicion of “committing preparatory acts for terrorism offences.”

The terrorist group’s leader Abu al-Hussein al-Husseini al-Qurashi was killed in northern Syria during clashes as announced last Thursday by the group, and Abu al-Hussein al-Husseini al-Qurashi has taken the helm of the group. These losses by the group did not deter it from extending its tentacles to Western countries. Germany suffered vicious waves of terrorist attacks orchestrated by the Islamic State in the last decade. Many have attributed these attacks to the lack of scrutiny and open-door immigration policies adopted by former Chancellor Angela Merkel. Another major concern is that German nationals are joining terrorist groups inside Germany and abroad.

“Germany has received a large number of immigrants, especially during the last ten years and for several reasons was not able to integrate all of them into the German society sufficiently. This led to the establishment of some ‘parallel societies’ where especially the younger and unemployed have a higher risk of radicalization,” said Wolfgang Pusztai, Austrian security expert and Senior Advisor at the Austrian Institute for European and Security Policy (AIES), who spoke to the Investigative Project on Terrorism.

Last July’s arrest of central Asia-originating terrorists looks like a growing concern in the European Union recently. Central Asian countries include a number of former Soviet Union republics which declared their independence post 1991. These include Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and the Kyrgyz Republic. The consecutive arrests of central Asian IS elements appears to be a growing shift from the traditional illegal immigrants from the Middle East who flocked to the country post the Arab Spring.

“Central Asia has always been one of the hotbeds for Islamic extremists. So, with the increasing number of migrants from this area, it is no surprise that there are some terrorists among them. Actually, this is not the first time that terrorists from Central Asia were arrested in Germany. For example, in April 2020, a cell of five IS members from Tajikistan was dismantled, also in North Rhine-Westphalia,” said Puztai.

Last year, a German court sentenced the five Tajik Islamic State members in May 2022 to up to 9.5 years in prison for joining the Islamic State and planning attacks against US forces stationed in Germany. The five men had been planning to attack targets including U.S. air bases and had already ordered bomb parts online, as well as stocking up on firearms and ammunition.

They also planned an assassination attempt on a person they believed had expressed Islam-critical views in public, and had already begun spying on the intended victim, prosecutors said.

Two of the suspects are also accused of travelling to Albania to carry out an assassination attempt in exchange for $40,000 (€36,000). However, the project failed and they returned to Germany.

“The western mindset is quite confused where immigration, human rights and the fight against terrorism and extremism are concerned,” said Amb Anil Trigunayat, India’s former Ambassador to Jordan, Libya and Malta and current political analyst. “For the terrorist groups including ISIS, this is a green field for their operations. Moreover, there is lack of assimilation in the local society even if employment opportunities are afforded to immigrants.”

The German government’s focus on the Middle Eastern terrorist cells parallel to the chaos following the Russian invasion of Ukraine may have led to what appears to be breaches in German security in recent years. The German government, which has approved the asylum applications of millions of immigrants in the past year, is facing surmounting challenges even to provide necessary housing for them, as German cities reached their limits.

“Many cities and municipalities have long been at their performance limits when it comes to accommodating refugees and displaced persons,” said Gerd Landsberg, the chief executive of the Association of Cities and Municipalities on January 24.

Terrorist attacks in Germany increased by 316 percent between the years 2014 and 2015. This massive hike in the terrorism percentage coincided with a 45.7 percent increase in the number of UNHCR mandated refugees in Germany and an 86 percent increase in asylum-seekers.

The German state of North Rhine-Westphalia has the largest proportion of inhabitants with a migrant background in Germany. In 2022, it was estimated that 33.5 % of its population of 17.9 million had a migrant background. More than 0.5 million of these migrants are of Central Asian descent. In Germany there are about three million people overall with their roots in Central Asia.

While consecutive terrorist attacks on German soil in the last two decades have placed German authorities on constant alert and resulted in security agencies thwarting 21 potential terrorist attacks since 2000, these efforts are hindered by the existence of lone wolves who are recruited by the likes of Al Qaeda and ISIS.

The increase in the presence of IS central Asian component.

Losing its leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in an American raid on his compound in 2019 did not deter ISIS from becoming a global threat, thanks to the many affiliates of the group worldwide that stretch from Central Asia to West Africa. While the group’s capability was severely reduced given the consecutive security hits, it can still operate as individual lone wolves and in smaller cells which are able to dodge the security in many countries.

While expansion in Central Asia remains the Islamic State in Khorasan Province’s [ISIS KP] main goal, it has also focused on infiltrating European countries recently.

Turkish authorities arrested ISIS KP’s alleged leader, Shaim Hukumatov, aka Abu Miskin, last June in Istanbul.

Police in Istanbul say they detained Tajik citizen Shamil Hukumatov on June 22 on suspicion of being a leader of the Islamic State-Khorasan (IS-K) extremist organization. Hukumatov, also known as Abu Miskin, has allegedly been involved in recruiting fighters for IS-K. Islamic State-Khorasan, created in 2014, wants to create an Islamic state of the Great Khorasan on the territory of Afghanistan, eastern parts of Iran, Pakistan, and Tajikistan. Tajik authorities have yet to comment on the reports about Hukumatov’s detention in Turkey.

The Central Asian component within the terrorist groups is growing significantly and it is in communication with terrorist elements in Afghanistan. A 2018 report by the Wilson Center noted that 0.005 percent of Central Asia region’s population has joined a terrorist group.

The activity of ISIS has been rapidly escalating, parallel to a rise of Islamist activity in Libya and west Africa this year where ISIS established a strong foothold.

“Libya and other conflict zones have become a confluence of terror outfits from Al Qaeda to AL Shabab to Boko Haram to ISIS,”

Counter-terrorism experts has said that Africa is now the world’s terrorism hot spot, with half of the victims killed last year in sub-Saharan Africa, though al-Qaeda and ISIS affiliates remain widespread, persistent and active elsewhere around the globe.

Interpol, the international criminal police agency, also reported during a panel discussion at the UN that terrorism linked to extreme right-wing ideology increased an estimated 50-fold over the past decade, particularly in Europe, North America and parts of the Asia-Pacific.

The experts see other trends: Deteriorating global security is making the terrorism threat “more complex and decentralized.”

Extremists are increasingly using sophisticated technology, and drones and artificial intelligence have opened new ways to plan and carry out attacks.

ISIS-Related Court Cases Continue in Germany

German courts are still trying cases involving German resident ISIS returnees who fled back to the country after the initial defeat of ISIS in Syria and Iraq, after contributing to the Yazidi genocide during the Syrian civil war. Many of these trials involve crimes against humanity. For example, a German woman who held Yazidi women as slaves in Syria and Iraq for 3 years was sentenced by a court in Koblenz in June to nine years in jail. Similarly, another German woman was sentenced to 10 years in jail in 2021 for the crime of enslaving a Yazidi woman in partnership with her husband.

Last year, a German court sentenced a group of five Tajik terrorists with Islamic State of Khorasan (Afghanistan) to prison terms ranging from three to nine years.

Moreover, the impact of President Joe Biden’s ordered, rapid and disorganized withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan in 2021 still echoes across the world as the Central Asian-based terrorist groups feel more liberated to act now, more than at any time in the past decade.

Afghanistan is witnessing a massive increase in ISIS KP attacks against civilians, and the US intelligence community warned last March of ISIS KP’s intent to attack Western targets.

“ISIS–Khorasan almost certainly retains the intent to conduct operations in the West and will continue efforts to attack outside Afghanistan,” noted the Annual Threat Assessment Report of the U.S. Intelligence Community.

“They can do an external operation against U.S. or Western interests abroad in under six months with little to no warning,” said Gen. Michael Kurilla, head of U.S. Central Command who spoke to the Senate Armed Services Committee last March.

Even without getting directly involved in terrorist activities, European-based Islamists played a major role in recent riots across Europe, as for example in the riots in France last month following the death of a French teenager of Algerian descent.

This development is a direct outcome of the lack of efficient integration policies as Islamist societies tend to reject such policies to preserve the ideology. Hence, the danger of such violence being replicated in Germany remains present.