The German Chancellor spoke out after a series of “lone-wolf attacks” around the country in recent weeks.
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Meeting what has been called the worst humanitarian crisis since World War Two, Germany said it would take up to 800,000 refugees this year. On Wednesday, in her statement, the Chancellor emphasized that the “phenomenon of terror” was not started in Germany by asylum seekers.
But ordinary Germans are feeling a lot less safe these days and Merkel felt it necessary to deny the link between terrorism and the refugees.
During an election campaign tour in Germany’s northeastern Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania state, Merkel told supporters that “the phenomenon of Islamist terrorism by IS isn’t a phenomenon that came to us with the refugees, it’s one that we had before too”.
The Office for the Protection of the Constitution says that it has concrete knowledge of over 340 cases of attempted Jihadist recruitment among migrants.
Its president Hans-Georg Maassen said: “There are more than 340 cases which have become known to us”.
But he warned: “These are only the ones we know about”.
Germany was rocked by several attacks in July, including three carried out by migrants.
German politicians are under increasing pressure to speed up the deportation process for tens of thousands of migrants who have been denied asylum.
In the meantime, German authorities have boosted security measures in the wake of the attacks such as the suicide bombing and train ax attack in Bavaria.
“Through digitalization, through social media, through the so-called darknet – which is now in the media again because of the Munich shooting – we must constantly and continuously adapt”, Merkel added.
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“What used to be just video surveillance will soon be including face detection technology”.
