Germany: Dealing With ISIS Returnees

Like other Western nations, Germany is having to deal with surviving ISIS members who left Germany to fight in Syria and Iraq for the Islamic State and are now returning to Germany. Many of them are women and children. The below article this week in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung reports the case of Monika K., who has returned to Germany and is now facing prosecution. Translation from the German by Fousesquawk.

 https://www.faz.net/aktuell/gesellschaft/kriminalitaet/deutsche-is-anhaengerin-monika-k-bei-rueckkehr-unter-terrorverdacht-festgenommen-17872649.html

Years-long terror activity

German ISIS member arrested upon return

Posted March 12, 2022-12:17

According to the indictment, she joined the “Islamic State” in Syria years ago. The German citizen, who was previously in Turkish custody, is alleged to have worked for the financing of the jihadists.

The police have arrested a German citizen for suspicion of terrorism, who is alleged to have worked for years in Iraq and Syria for the jihadist militia, “Islamic State”. The suspect, Monika K., was arrested by federal police on Friday upon her arrival at Frankfurt Airport the Federal Prosecutor’s Office reported. Previously, she was in Turkish custody for 1-1/2 years. She was reportedly engaged primarily in the financing of ISIS.  

The German woman will be taken to appear before the investigating judge at the Federal Court on Saturday. The judge should issue an arrest warrant for her and decide on pre-trial detention.

According to the information, Monika K. first traveled to Egypt with her husband in July 2013, and from there, went on to Syria. In Syria, the couple joined the “Islamic State” no later than February 2014. In 2015, her husband was killed in battle for the militia, Monika K. remaining for years in the area controlled by the militia and there, married two more times.

Among other things, they operated a donation network for female ISIS members, a messenger service to solicit donations for ISIS-members in refugee camps, and established contacts between fundraisers in Germany and female ISIS-members in Syria, explained the Prosecutor’s Office.

Women in the area then-controlled by ISIS

In the beginning of 2019, the Germans were captured by Kurdish fighters and brought to the refugee camp at Al-Hol in Northern Syria. At the end of 2019, they were then smuggled out of the camp by a high-ranking ISIS member. and the two were married. In September 2020, K was reportedly then arrested on the way to Al-Hol and has since then been in Turkish custody.

According to the Office for Protection of the Constitution (domestic intelligence), since 2012, at least 1150 people from Germany have traveled to the then-ISIS-controlled area of Iraq and Syria for Islamist reasons. An estimated one-third of them were women. 

In the meantime, some of them, who were in custody in Northern Syria and Iraq, have returned to Germany- mostly women and minor children. The number of returnees, who have been finally adjudicated in Germany, in the meantime, is in the middle double-digits, according to the Federal Office for Protection of the Constitution.

“People who completed a terrorist training camp, (or) were active in combat activities in Syria or Iraq, can, by their return, pose a significant security risk for the State and its citizens,” reads a report from the Office of Protection of the Constitution. “Skills obtained in the war zones, as well as possible brutalization through excessive exposure to violence, can serve as a basis of motivation for the planning and carrying out of attacks.”