Europe's biggest economy may be a growing target of socially-alienated Muslim youths.
ANALYSIS - FMT
By William Maclean
HAMBURG (Germany): German-language Islamist propaganda is fuelling
militancy among a small number of socially-alienated Muslim youths in
Germany, say security experts, who worry that Europe’s biggest economy
may be a growing target for attacks.
The spread of an ultra-conservative brand of Islam and the emergence
of populist preachers who oppose the integration of minority Muslims
into wider society are compounding the impact of the online videos and
discussion forums, they say.
Despite the prominence of Germany in the story of Al-Qaeda due to
Hamburg’s role as a base for three Sept 11 suicide pilots, its
indigenous militant scene is much smaller than that in Britain or France
and has taken longer to become active.
But security officials say it is growing, albeit on the far fringes
of Muslim communities, citing a string of attacks and thwarted plots in
recent years and an outflow of youths to training camps in Pakistan
since 2006.
Last Wednesday, a 21-year-old Kosovo Albanian confessed to shooting
dead two US airmen and wounding two more at Frankfurt airport in March,
telling a court he was swayed by Islamist online propaganda he now
realised was “lies”.
The expansion of Islamist militancy in Germany reflects the growing variety of Europe’s militant community, analysts say.
European converts, and Europeans of Turkish, Kurdish, central Asian
and West African background are joining a movement once dominated by
Britons of Pakistani ancestry or Frenchmen of north African heritage.
Across Europe, school drop-outs and ex-convicts now mix with the more educated activists who once predominated.
In Germany, militant youths increasingly read German-language
Internet propaganda, an online world once dominated by Arabic, Urdu,
Pashto and English, much of it expressing opposition to Germany’s
military presence in Afghanistan.
Populist preachers of the Salafist school of Islam, a brand of the
religion that has its roots in Saudi Arabia, increasingly speak at
public meetings, not just in mosques.
“They used to hide in the mosque but now they are encouraged to be
public. They show their opinion,” Manfred Murck, head of the Hamburg
branch of Germany’s domestic intelligence service, told Reuters.
Web creates ‘virtual’ militant groups
“The tradition of terrorism is more or less a tradition of groups.
But now we see that the group is not always necessary and that the
Internet functions as a kind of virtual group.”
The combined effect of the online propaganda and of preachers
speaking in person to audiences “makes the whole scene of jihadists in
Germany more cohesive and assertive”.
Security experts point to the likes of Islamic preacher Pierre Vogel (
picture below),
a former professional boxer who later converted to Islam and studied in
Saudi Arabia and has voiced strong
objections to integrating Muslims
into German society.
Another convert-turned-preacher is Denis Mamadou Cuspert, a former
rapper called Deso Dogg, who now sings Muslim religious chants and
believes Islam is under attack from the West. Yet another is
Turkish-German cleric Mohammed Ciftci.
Experts say the expression of such views, intentionally or not, can facilitate a tolerance of violence among listeners.
“Deso Dogg is so important. He can really captivate you. These hymns
can support a radicalisation process,” said Guido Steinberg, an Islamic
studies expert at the German Institute for International and Security
Affairs think-tank.
“The jihadism scene in Germany has become a movement of the urban
riff-raff. That may sound a little harsh, but it’s fair in the sense
that they are not accepted by society – although they are by the
Salafists.”
The surge in German online propaganda seen since 2007 comes from
North Waziristan, a Pakistani tribal region known for Al-Qaeda and
Taliban activity and which remains the preferred destination for German
militants seeking paramilitary training.
Many of its authors are German-speaking members of the Islamic
Movement of Uzbekistan, a Central Asian jihadi movement with ties to
Al-Qaeda and which actively recruits in Europe.
“We’ve seen dozens and dozens of messages from this area,” said Peter
Neumann, Professor of Security Studies at the War Studies Department of
Kings College in London.
He said militants from Europe who prove unfit for the battlefield
were put to work producing propaganda or were sent back to Europe to try
to enable attacks there.
Islamists pose tricky political test
Concern over Islamists poses a delicate political test for German
authorities amidst a raucous national debate about Islam and integration
of Germany’s four million Muslims, mostly of Turkish origin, in a
population of 82 million.
Long considered as migrant workers who would eventually go back to
their ancestral homes, these Muslims are now an established minority
pushing for equal rights.
Akif Sahin, a Hamburg-based Turkish youth worker, said the radical
preachers’ views went against the grain of many mainstream Muslim
communities who since 2005 had been working to become part of wider
German society.
Salafism was growing in popularity, said Sahin, and this had to do
with propagandists like Vogel. Mainstream Muslim communities had tried
to “get these extremists to quieten down because they are very
aggressive about trying to extend their influence. But it’s not clear
whether this mainstream effort is succeeding”.
Sahin said Salafis excelled at fund raising and using online social
networks. Good language skills often made them better at communicating
with alienated youths than imams in a large Turkish state-supported
network of mosques in Germany.
Murck, head of the Hamburg State Office for the Protection of the
Constitution, said young Muslims found the new breed of outspoken
activists to be “a kind of idol because they are seen as tough enough to
speak out in public.
“When Vogel spoke here (in Hamburg recently) there were about 500
followers, or at least ‘inquiring persons’, listening. This was new for
us.”
Komtar
state assemblyperson Ng Wei Aik noted that the premier had met with
Malaysian students in Perth but that he had also travelled on a personal
matter. For this reason, Najib should foot the travel bill.
Najib's presence in Australia had gone unnoticed until a Malaysiakini reader said the prime minister's plane had been sighted landing in Perth on Aug 31.
