Jihadists in Germany Pose Terrorist Threat to America and its Allies, says New TRAC Analysis

Although the current hotbed of militant Islam is generally thought to be concentrated in Yemen and Somalia, some of the most dangerous leaders and terrorist cells directed at the "far enemy” (U.S. and its European allies) are in Germany. That’s the assertion of a new analysis of the extreme branch of Islam known as Salafism that has been added to the Publishing Center in Terrorism Research & Analysis Consortium (TRAC), an online resource center for the study of terrorism and political violence. The analysis reveals how Germany’s Salafist groups are deeply connected to the most prominent jihadist leaders and are the perpetrators of homegrown, sophisticated plots and attacks against U.S. and European targets.

"Germany has seen a growing number of radicalized German Muslims and recent converts willing to take up arms,” said Maha Hamdan, author of the analysis and a noted researcher on Salafism and jihad. "Those Jihadists are overwhelmingly not foreign born immigrants. Many are natural born Germans who have converted from a Western religion to Islam. What is unique about these German-born converts to Islam is their attraction to militancy.”

Little attention was paid to militant Islamism in Germany and specifically to Salafism prior to 2000, but escalating activity has raised the Salafist profile, according to TRAC. Since the turn of the century, at least nine plans for Salafist attacks on German soil have been averted and 350 legal proceedings related to Islamist-terrorist offenses are being litigated.
Read more at http://www.virtual-strategy.com/2012/07/17/jihadists-germany-pose-terror...
(...)