Germany To Investigate 40 Cases of Terrorists in Refugee Camps

Germany announced it would be investigating up to 40 cases of Islamic State (IS) members posing as refugees. The Islamic State (IS) has previously threatened to insert jihadists into the migrant flow in order to target European states.

Hans Georg Maassen, head of the BND told a new conference last week that he was concerned about the high number of migrants who remain unidentified because they possess no documentation. Migrant numbers reached up to 10,000 per day during the fall but diminished flowing the closure of the Balkan route in Western Europe.

Recent terror attacks in Paris and Istanbul with terrorists posing as refugees has raised concerns about large scale, uncontrolled migration. There is also a rising fear among German citizens that a large-scale terror attack similar to Paris and Brussels is imminent. A spokeswoman for Germany’s Federal Bureau of Investigation known (BKA) noted since the start of the migrant crisis they received 369 tips about potential terrorists posing as migrants, which led to the 40 cases under investigation.

There have been several incidents in which terrorists entered Germany as refugees were plotting to carry out attacks. On December 18, 2015, a Syrian man named Leeth Abdelhmeed was arrested in a German refugee camp after it was found had ties to IS terror financing.  In January of this year, an unidentified Middle Eastern man attempts to attack a Paris police station, and is shot dead by authorities. The assailant once lived in a refugee camp in Recklinghausen, Germany. February 9, a high ranking IS commander who had previously fought with Sunni jihadist groups in Syria is arrested at the Sankt Johann refugee camp. Also in February 2016, German authorities arrested three Algerians living in a refugee camp suspected of having ties to Islamic State.

About 60% of migrants that come through Germany do not have any papers or a passport. The Daily Mail reported that in January 2016, Germany had lost track of nearly 600,000 of the 1.1. Million migrants that arrived throughout 2015.

Germany’s situation mirrors concerns raised in the United States regarding the ability to adequately screen and identify potential refugees. FBI Director James Comey in October of last year warned Congress that there was no effective way to screen prospective refugees. Despite in April the Obama Administration signaled that it would speed up vetting for refugees from two years, to only three months.