German Interior Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble has warned that militant groups are deliberately trying to recruit converts to Islam to carry out attacks because are less likely to raise suspicion. “We have information from the Islamic terrorism network that they are actively seeking to recruit converts for their own terrorist aims,” Schaeuble told AFP in an…
Turkish authorities confirmed that they had arrested a suspected al-Qaida member wanted in Germany. Atilla Selek was detained in the central Anatolian city of Konya on charges of membership in a terrorist organization and preparing to carry out bomb attacks, with the aim of extraditing him to Germany, police said in a statement. Two German…
The recent arrest of two German converts on accusations of plotting terrorist attacks has placed Muslim converts in the European country under the microscope. “You can’t say that conversion to Islam carries an implicit tendency towards becoming a radical,” said Stefan Reichmuth, a professor of Islamic studies at the Ruhr University in Bochum. Last week,…
By Esra _zy_rek In a guest editorial, anthropologist Esra _zy_rek from the University of California, San Diego argues that German converts to Islam are not the threat they are claimed to be, and explains how converts make a valuable contribution to German society. Recently the German press has been filled with stories about how German…
Karlsruhe, Germany (dpa) – It would be wrong to cast a general cloud of suspicion over converts to Islam, German Attorney General Monika Harms said Thursday, following the smashing last week of an alleged Islamist terrorist cell. The revelation that two of those arrested on September 4 for planning potentially devastating bomb attacks against US…
