Berlin: Around 200 Islamic extremists involved in wars in Iraq and Syria have returned to Germany, posing security risks to the country, a top German intelligence official said here Wednesday.
“We have to assume that we will also become targets of terrorist attacks, and we must adjust,” Xinhua quoted Hans-Georg Maassen, the president of German Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution.
The official said about 70 of the returning jihadis were suspected of participating in acts of war and serious crimes in the conflict zones. However, constant surveillance of the jihadis’ activities was difficult.
“Round-the-clock observation is hardly possible,” Maassen said during an European police conference here, however, adding that there was no evidence of specific attack plans.
The German domestic intelligence authority estimated that 600 young people have so far travelled to Iraq and Syria where the Islamic State (IS) terrorist group had been seizing territory. Among them, around 70 have been killed.
Europe has faced terrorist attacks in last two months.
In January, 20 people including three gunmen were killed in terrorist attacks in Paris, and earlier this month, a gunman killed two people in Danish capital Copenhagen, before being shot dead by police.
The Copenhagen gunman had pledged allegiance to the IS on Facebook.
In both the cities, the attackers targeted among others people who had courted controversy for objectionable portrayal of Prophet Muhammad.