German security officials have seen an increase in al-Qaeda activity on the Internet aimed at radicalizing, recruiting and training potential German-speaking terrorists, an Interior Ministry official said Friday. Stefan Paris, the spokesman for Interior Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble, said that “German security authorities have seen a qualitative increase in al-Qaeda activity on the Internet.” Based on information studied online, Paris told reporters that German officials believe that al-Qaeda has rebuilt itself among the Afghan-Pakistani border region. “We have very clearly seen that al-Qaeda increasingly uses the Internet for three components – a massive radicalization, recruiting and the spreading of technical information on how to carry out a terror attack, including construction of explosive devices.” Paris said. He added that officials were also seeing a “clear focus on Germany,” citing an increase in the number of German-language postings from al-Qaeda over the past year.
