Alleged attack plans: Investigators find suspicious substances

The suspicion against two Iranians who are said to have planned an attack with poisonous substances is confirmed: According to information from the ARD Capital Studios substances have now been found to produce toxins.

The apartment of the 32-year-old Iranian was searched a second time on Friday. She was first searched the night the man and his 25-year-old brother were arrested a week earlier on Saturday night. The new search took place in daylight and without any special security measures, and this time the investigators found what they were looking for: according to information from the ARD Capital Studios from security circles they discovered substances needed to produce toxins.

The investigators accuse the two suspects of wanting to carry out an Islamist-motivated attack with highly toxic ricin and cyanide. During the first search, the police had discovered neither materials for the production of the toxins or the construction of a bomb, nor concrete plans for an attack. A spokesman for the public prosecutor’s office in Düsseldorf confirmed to ARD capital studiothat there was another search that found more evidence. Out of consideration for the ongoing investigation, the Attorney General’s Office declined to comment on exactly what was found. The two suspects have been in custody for a week.

Note from the US

The German security authorities received information about an imminent attack from the USA shortly before New Year’s Eve. After another hint, the German investigators managed to identify the person as the 32-year-old Iranian in Castrop-Rauxel.

According to information from ARD Capital Studios he had contacted a group associated with the so-called Islamic State. The group specializes in propagating attacks of this type. It has existed, at least under its current name, since 2018 and distributes instructions explaining how to produce poison or poison gas, build bombs and explosive vests, and carry out attacks, especially with poisonous substances.

A Telegram channel is used for distribution, in which the instructions are usually made available in PDF format or as a video. The group is considered one of several IS media outlets through which relevant propaganda material is disseminated and where jihadists around the world can receive instructions on how to carry out terrorist attacks.

Contact with IS-affiliated group

As the ARD Capital Studio from security circles, according to the current status of the investigation, it does not appear that the brothers were radicalized over a longer period of time by an IS operator in addition to contact with the IS-affiliated group and during the concrete preparations for the implementation of an attack would have been accompanied. This was the case in several cases when attacks were carried out in the name of IS in Germany in 2016, such as the ax attack on a regional train near Würzburg, an unsuccessful attack at a music festival in Ansbach and the attack on the Christmas market in the Berlin Breitscheidplatz.

Ever since the so-called Islamic State disappeared from the map, IS has been operating from the underground and focusing on carrying out attacks in Syria and Iraq. An IS offshoot is also responsible for numerous terrorist attacks in Afghanistan, where the terrorist organization sees itself in a kind of competitive relationship with the Taliban.

There are also IS offshoots in other regions. According to the German security authorities, it is the declared goal of the IS to carry out attacks in Europe again, but it is assumed that the organization is currently not in a position to initiate large-scale terror plots in Europe. However, IS and its propaganda machinery remained accessible to jihadists all over the world via the Internet. From 2014 to 2017, the terrorist militia in Syria and Iraq subdued an area, proclaimed a caliphate and became a magnet for thousands of jihadists around the world. Hundreds of radicalized Islamists from Germany made their way to the IS and often paid for this decision with their lives.

Younger brother possibly driving force

The German investigators initially did not have the 25-year-old brother of the Iranian identified according to the US tip on their screens. He was only found by chance when a special task force from the North Rhine-Westphalian police stormed the 32-year-old’s apartment. The 25-year-old is undergoing psychiatric treatment and was only visiting his brother. In the meantime, however, it seems that the younger of the two brothers could even have been the driving force behind the alleged attack, that was learned ARD Capital Studio in security circles. He was sentenced to seven years in prison in 2019, including for attempted murder, for throwing a branch at a vehicle’s windshield from a highway bridge.

Mentally unstable or ill men who come to Germany as refugees, mostly traumatized, develop a hatred of society and become radicalized to the point of attack – the German security authorities have to deal with cases of this kind again and again. They present the investigators with special challenges because forecasts are particularly difficult in these cases. These people often do not have any visible connections to the radical Islamist scene, but only radicalize themselves on the Internet. For the security authorities, they are often not even recognizable. Until then, the 25-year-old Iranian had not been noticed as a radicalized Islamist, just like his older brother.