Free Republic

The head of Germany’s domestic security agency, the BfV, said on Wednesday that Germany has become a priority target for terror group ISIS over the past year. “Germany became significantly more prioritized as a target of ISIS over the course of 2016,” said BfV President Hans-Georg Maaßen, adding that the level of danger continues to be high. The country was shaken by several terror attacks in the name of ISIS last year, most notably the December 19th Berlin Christmas market attack in which 12 people were killed. …

Germany’s domestic security chief warned on Sunday that the country’s radical Islamist scene is not only growing, but becoming more decentralized, posing greater challenges to surveillance operations. In an interview with national news agency DPA, Hans-Georg Maaßen also defended security officials under fire after it emerged that Berlin truck attack suspect Anis Amri had slipped through their net, saying they had done everything they could. Overall, the number of Salafists — or fundamentalist Sunni Muslims — in Germany has risen to more than 9,700, sharply up from 3,800 people in 2011, said Maaßen. “It’s of great concern to us that...