German authorities reported arresting a Libyan national suspected of links to the Islamic State extremist group who allegedly planned a gun attack on the Israeli embassy, AP News reported.
Police and other security forces detained a man Saturday night in Bernau, a town near Berlin, and searched his home, according to the Federal Prosecutor’s Office. Officials said the suspect was a Libyan national whom they identified only as Omar A.
He intended to carry out a high-profile attack with firearms on the Israeli Embassy in Berlin. The accused exchanged information with a member of IS in a messenger chat.
Security forces also searched the home of another man considered a witness rather than a suspect. Interior Minister Nancy Faeser stated that German security authorities “struck in time to thwart possible plans to attack the Israeli embassy in Berlin.”
This shows that protecting Jewish and Israeli institutions in our country is vital and of the utmost importance to us.
The 29-year-old suspect appeared before an investigating judge at the Federal Court of Justice in Karlsruhe on Sunday. He arrived in Germany in November 2022 and applied for asylum, but it was rejected according to German media. The case prompted Justice Minister Marco Buschmann to declare the threat of Islamist terrorism in Germany “very serious.”
Israeli institutions are particularly often the target of terrorists.
A sharp rise in anti-Semitic incidents was recorded in Germany after the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip on 7 October last year.
