24-11-2024 09:43 AM Jerusalem Timing

Germany Arrests Three over Links with Syria Terrorist Groups

Germany Arrests Three over Links with Syria Terrorist Groups

German authorities arrested three people with alleged ties to a Syrian terrorist group Monday in police raids across the country, the federal prosecutor’s office said.

German authorities arrested three people with alleged ties toMilitants a Syrian terrorist group Monday in police raids across the country, the federal prosecutor's office said.

Two of the suspects, a German and a Turk, are believed to have travelled to Syria last year and joined the militant group Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), which German authorities consider to be a foreign terrorist organization.

The third person, a woman with dual German-Polish citizenship, was taken into custody on suspicion of providing 4,800 euros ($6,600) to the group.

More than 100 members of the elite police squad GSG 9, the federal police force and state police conducted simultaneous searches of 10 flats in the capital Berlin and the western cities of Bonn and Frankfurt, including the homes of five more suspects.

They are also believed to belong to or support ISIL.

Federal prosecutor Harald Range said that the operation showed "that violent conflicts like the one in Syria have a direct impact on us in Germany".

"We must decisively fight this phenomenon with all the means of the criminal justice system, with an eye to the possible dangers that radicalized people returning from Syria can pose to the population in Germany," he said in a statement.

Hundreds of European nationals are believed to have joined Syria's militant groups, raising fears that they will plot attacks in Europe when they return home.