Germany: Teens allegedly planned Christmas market attack
November 30, 2023
Two German teenagers are accused of plotting a terror attack on a Christmas market in the western German city of Leverkusen, German prosecutors said on Thursday.
The suspects, a 15-year-old boy in North Rhine-Westphalia and a 16-year-old boy in the eastern state of Brandenburg, were arrested earlier on Wednesday.
What do we know about the alleged terror plot?
Officials said the 15-year-old boy posted in a chat group about a plan to attack a Christmas market in Leverkusen, a city near Cologne in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia.
The teenager allegedly claimed to have acquired gasoline for what prosecutors called "a fuel-induced explosion of a small truck."
Prosecutors alleged that two teenagers planned to leave Germany after the attack to join an offshoot of the so-called "Islamic State" group in Afghanistan.
Investigators are examining evidence collected at the 15-year-old boy's home, including hard drives. Investigators did not find any stocks of fuel.
Neither of the suspects were named, as is typical under Germany's strict privacy laws for juveniles accused of crimes.
Similar plot reportedly foiled elsewhere
The news comes as Germany's domestic intelligence agency said that the threat situation in the country had escalated since Hamas' October 7 terrorist attack in Israel.
The agency said there was an increased risk that lone assailants could become radicalized and attack "soft targets."
Later on Thursday, German public broadcasters NDR and WDR reported that investigators had foiled another similar plot for a terror attack around the Christmas holidays.
Citing a spokesman for the investigative criminal police force (or LKA) for the state of Lower Saxony, NDR reported that a 20-year-old suspect had been arrested on November 21.
The state's interior minister, Daniela Behrens, told NDR that although investigators did not have concrete indications of a specific plan harbored by the individual, information that was at their disposal had moved authorities to place the man in preventive detention.
zc, msh/jsi (dpa, AP)