Seven individuals have been arrested by German police on suspicion of establishing a terrorist organization aimed at carrying out high-profile attacks resembling those conducted by ISIS, according to prosecutors.
The suspects, who are Turkmen, Tajik, and Kyrgyz nationals, were apprehended in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia in western Germany. Prosecutors revealed that they had known each other for an extended period and had entered the country from Ukraine shortly after the commencement of the war in 2022.
It is alleged that they formed the terrorist organization in June 2022 and had been contemplating potential targets within Germany while attempting to acquire weapons. However, at the time of their arrest, no concrete plans for an attack had been made, as stated by prosecutors.
With the exception of the Kyrgyz national, the arrested individuals in Germany had also been collecting funds for ISIS since April 2022, repeatedly sending money to the group abroad.
In a related development, Dutch authorities arrested two additional suspects on Thursday who were connected to the same group. The individuals, a man from Tajikistan and his Kyrgyz wife, had been residing in the Netherlands since 2022.
The man is suspected of being a member of ISIS and had reportedly received instructions to plot an attack, although specific plans had not yet been formulated, according to Dutch prosecutors in a separate statement.