Stabbing in Germany

On Friday July 20^th, in the Kuecknitz district of the German city of Leubeck, a man stabbed and seriously injured 14 people on bus headed to the costal city of Travemunde. The suspect, who is believed to be Iranian and in his 30s, was arrested by police after they arrived in the area. It is reported that the perpetrator used a kitchen knife in his attack. Police have not ruled out terrorism as a motive after the man dropped a smoldering backpack during the attack.

The German government has long warned that other attacks are possible after having experienced several attacks claimed by the Islamic State in recent years. Over the first weekend of July, Belgian, French, and German authorities thwarted a plot to bomb a conference hosted by an exiled Iranian political party, the Mujahidin al-Khalq (MEK). In June German authorities announced that they had foiled what is believed to have been the first attempted biological attack within the country when they arrested a Cologne man for procuring materials needed to create ricin and launch a deadly attack. The most notable terror incident in recent years, however, was the December 2016 lorry attack that saw the perpetrator drive through a Berlin Christmas market, leaving 12 people dead and several more injured.

Germany remains a keen target for jihadist groups because of involvement in the fighting of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. German intelligence estimates that there are over 10,000 Islamic radicals in Germany, at least 900 of them deemed to be extremely dangerous and capable of using violence against innocent people. A small amount of these individuals has been detained for various offenses, this leaves a substantial number of these radical that are currently free members of German society. If Germany wants to reduce the threat posed by such individuals then they must devise a means of reducing these numbers in a secure and effective manner.