Germany Charges Syrian Immigrant With Supporting ISIS Evidence is growing that Islamic State fighters have infiltrated Europe among migrants fleeing conflict By Ruth Bender
http://www.wsj.com/articles/germany-charges-syrian-immigrant-with-supporting-isis-1477566821
BERLIN—A 19-year-old Syrian immigrant was charged with supporting Islamic State, Germany’s top prosecutor said Thursday, a sign that the country’s authorities are uncovering a growing body of evidence that the terrorist group used last year’s migrant influx to send fighters to Europe.
The federal prosecutor-general accused the Syrian national identified as Shaas Al-M. of joining the terror militia in his Syrian hometown by mid-2013 and having participated in fighting for the group there. After leaving in summer 2015, the prosecutor’s office said, the suspect scouted possible targets in Berlin, recruited at least one person to fight for Islamic State in Syria, and signaled he was prepared to carry out an attack himself.
The move is the first indictment by Germany’s prosecutor-general alleging that a person who was among the migrants to arrive last year was considering an attack here, according to summaries available on the prosecutor’s website. It is the latest sign that German authorities are scrambling to prevent Islamist violence by migrants, amid fears of terrorism among Germans and an anti-Islam political party on the rise. And it underscores the political risks that German Chancellor Angela Merkel faces from the terror threat here, less than one year before next fall’s general elections.
Two Islamist attacks by migrants in July, in which the attackers died and 19 others were injured, fanned those fears. Earlier this month, German police arrested another Syrian migrant who arrived last year and they found several hundred grams of explosives in an apartment in which he was staying. The man, suspected of planning a suicide bombing, later killed himself in prison.
In June, police arrested three suspected Islamic State members form Syria on suspicion of preparing an attack on the city of Düsseldorf. In September, police detained another three Syrians who had traveled to Germany last November in what officials said might be the first arrest of a so-called sleeper cell sent to Germany to commit attacks. None of the suspects have been indicted yet.
Mr. Al-M came to Germany with experience in handling weapons, according to the prosecutor. In 2013 and 2014 he served as a guard armed with a Kalashnikov rifle during Islamic State assaults in and around the city of Deir ezZor, according to the indictment.
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