In July, young men attacked Germany four times over the course of seven days. She also confirmed that terror groups such as ISIS have managed to find and contaminate the migrant route through Europe that is frequented by those seeking asylum.
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BERLIN – Chancellor Angela Merkel defended her handling of the refugee crisis and vowed swift action against those who commit terrorism following a spate of violent attacks that have shaken the German public and sparked renewed criticism of her migration policies.
“A decision has to be taken on this each time and perhaps some members of the public have a different view to the way I chose to do things”, she said.
She repeated her rallying cry from last year when she opened the borders to people fleeing war and persecution, many from Syria, which brought almost 1.1 million migrants and refugees to the country last year.
“I am convinced, just as earlier, that we can do our historical task well in the time of globalization”.
She said it was the goal of terrorists to “undermine the way in which we live our lives”.
She said it was irrelevant whether the refugee attackers “had come to Germany before or after 4 September” a reference to her historic decision on that night in 2015 to open the German border to more than 10,000 refugees who were stranded in Hungary.
Merkel, who interrupted her summer holiday to address reporters in Berlin, said a string of attacks was “shocking, oppressive and depressing” but not a sign that authorities had lost control, Agence France-Presse reported.
Germany was already reeling from a shooting spree in Munich on Friday by an 18-year-old German-Iranian that left nine people dead.
Merkel’s methodical response is in stark contrast to that of French President Francois Hollande, who has rushed to the scene of recent attacks.
Mrs Merkel pledged at a news conference that she would do everything she could to deal with the “barbaric acts”, and bring to justice those responsible.
The four incidents since 18 July included an axe-and-knife attack on a commuter train near Wuerzburg, a mass shooting in Munich, a knife attack in Reutlingen and a suicide bombing in Ansbach.
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“We have to do whatever is humanly possible – and I want to do that in my work – to prevent any such attacks from taking place”, Merkel said. “But given the new challenges we face – shaped by Islamist terror – we will introduce the correct measures and make clear we want to give our citizens security and master the integration challenges”. More than a million arrived in Germany during 2015 and there are growing fears that radicalized Muslims are among them, posing significant terror threats. It is for that reason, she said, that “internal and external security can no longer be distinguished from each other”.
