ISIS terrorist group own several travel agencies in Europe and is using them to send terrorists to the Middle East
While Germany is on alert amid a rising terrorist threat and the recent arrests of potential Islamists who have allegedly been plotting terror attacks in the country, Sputnik Germany talked to a researcher in the field of Islamism, Sigrid Herrmann-Marshall, about the instruments Daesh uses to carry out their activities in the European and beyond.
ISIS has its own travel agencies in Europe, one of which has been operating in the German city of Duisburg, an expert on terrorism and Islamism, Sigrid Herrmann-Marshall, told Sputnik.
With the help of such an agency, it is easy to send ISIS fighters from Germany to the Middle East under the guise of tourist trips, the researcher argued.
According to Herrmann-Marshall, ISIS members fulfill various tasks within the terrorist organization depending on their personal capabilities.
“In my opinion, there are those who are involved in marketing activities,” the expert said. “Others are engaged in recruitment and are in charge of finance,” the analyst noted.
Recently, a Kurdish militia detained a 34-year-old German Daesh propagandist, Oguz G., in Syria. He worked as a graphic designer and distributed jihadist propaganda on various social media outlets.
According to reports, he had allegedly been in contact with Abu Walaa who is believed to be the number one Daesh preacher in Germany.
In Hermann-Marshall’s opinion, Abu Walaa managed to organize the whole Islamist network in Germany.
“He succeeded in gathering around him a large number of people and organizing them very well,” the analyst said.
She argued that Walla managed to arrange numerous terrorist trips from Germany to Syria and called this practice “unbelievable.”
“I don’t understand how the intelligence does not notice this. Is there any surveillance at all?” the researcher asked.
Germany has been on terror alert amid a series of terror attacks that took place on its soil over the last few years, with the deadliest one being a truck attack at a Berlin Christmas market in 2016.
Anxieties over a potential terror threat have increased over the last few days when German police has detained a 29-year-old German man in the city of Karlsruhe, who has been supporting Daesh since 2015 and allegedly plotted a truck attack in the center of the city.
Earlier, media revealed that the German Public Prosecutor General opened five times more cases related to terrorism in 2017 than in the previous year.
In 2017, a total of 1,200 terror-related cases were opened with some 1,000 of them linked to Islamism. In 2016, the Public Prosecutor General opened only 250 terror-related cases with some 200 of them dealing with Islamism, reports said.
Source: Sputnik
