There have been knife attacks with an Islamist background in Germany for several years. The attackers are lone perpetrators. They are mentally disturbed terrorists, and it is often unclear whether it is Islamist ideology that is killing them, their sick psyche, or both. Even more than a week after the attack in Würzburg, it is still unclear what exactly led the 24-year-old Somali to stab three women. The man came to Germany in 2015. He is said to have justified his asylum application by saying that he was being persecuted in his home country by the Islamist terrorist organization al-Shabaab. He was granted subsidiary protection. The man is said to have been to a psychiatric clinic twice in the past, once, according to the findings so far,he had previously threatened roommates with a knife. According to witness statements, he shouted "Allahu Akbar" during his murder.
Philip Eppelsheim
Editor in politics of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung.
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A similar crime occurred in July 2016 on a regional train near Würzburg. The perpetrator injured five people with an ax and a knife. He came to Germany in 2015 and was registered as an unaccompanied minor refugee. He had stated that he came from Afghanistan. He is also said to have shouted "Allahu Akbar" during the crime. In a confessional video, the perpetrator said: “I am a soldier of the Islamic State and am starting a sacred operation in Germany.” And further: “God willing, you are being attacked in every street, in every village, in every city and at every airport . ”Federal Minister of the Interior Thomas de Maizière spoke at the time of an act“ in the border area between rampage and terror ”.
The following year, a 27-year-old Palestinian stabbed his victim in a supermarket in Hamburg and killed a man.
The perpetrator had also been in Germany since 2015.
According to the court, he had been instrumentalized by IS propaganda and read everything he could about the terrorist organization on the Internet.
The perpetrator once shouted in front of a refugee café: "The flames of war will reach you sooner or later."
The perpetrators do not come out of nowhere
Or last year in Dresden: A 20-year-old Syrian stabbed a 55-year-old man and seriously injured his companion.
The perpetrator came to Germany in 2015.
He lived in a home for asylum seekers with a toleration.
Even before the knife attack, he was in custody for assault, membership recruitment for the IS and other offenses.
These are only a few cases that have caused a special stir, but there are many more. The director of the Criminological Central Office in Wiesbaden, Martin Rettenberger, calls it a “recent phenomenon that terrorist acts are carried out with knives or stabbing weapons”. The reason for this is on the one hand that Islamist terrorists can no longer fall back on structures after the break-up of IS. The attacks are less organized and less prepared. In addition, according to the findings of extremism researchers, IS and Al-Qaeda called for such attacks a long time ago: easy to prepare and carry out, difficult to prevent. Jörg Radek from the police union also warns: “It can be seen that we have to reckon with more and more individual perpetrators. That has something to do withthat the so-called IS has been successfully smashed in its structures. Obviously, however, after a change of strategy, individual perpetrators are recruited. "