Bavarian Interior Minister Joachim Hermann warned that Islamist terrorism remains Germany’s biggest security threat at a news conference in Munich on Friday. Hermann presented an annual report on the activities of far-right, far-left and Islamic extremists in Bavaria.
“Returnees from the former IS-controlled areas pose a particular security risk, so it is important to keep a close eye on them from the beginning”, said the official. The minister said that the best solution would be to jail them on return.
“The widespread collapse of the Islamic state must not blind us to the fact that Germany and Europe continue to be the focus of Islamist terrorism”, said Hermann at the news conference.
Hermann said that the authorities estimate that more than 1,050 German citizens left to fight for the Islamic State and that the law doesn’t prevent their re-entry.
Referring to the series of attacks on hotels and churches in Sri Lanka in April, he said that they prove that followers of radical Islamism don’t shy away from atrocities. Although, the German authorities don’t have information about an imminent attack, there is still a high risk of such incidents, according to the official.
Hermann also noted the rise in numbers of far-right and far-left extremists in Bavaria. Around 1,000 far-right and 730 far-left activists have been classified as violent by the authorities.
According to the latest figures from the Germany’s domestic security agency, the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, in 2017 there were 6,393 crimes motivated by left-wing extremism, while there were 19,467 motivated by right-wing extremism.