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10Mar16
Germany Obtains List of Foreigners Suspected of Fighting for ISIS
The German authorities have obtained a trove of documents that are said to list foreigners who have traveled to Syria to fight for the Islamic State, which officials hope will help them prosecute fighters who return home and prevent other Germans from joining the organization.
The Interior Ministry confirmed on Thursday that officials believed that the documents, which were reported by the news media earlier this week, were authentic, but they declined to give any details about the origin of the papers or the identities of those named.
It was also not immediately clear whether the German authorities were sharing the information with the intelligence agencies of their allies, including the United States and Britain.
A team of investigative reporters from the Munich newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung and the public broadcasters NDR and WDR reported about the documents on Monday. But the news received widespread attention only when Sky News, a British broadcaster, said Thursday that it had also obtained similar documents. Sky News said its trove included the names of 22,000 foreigners said to have crossed into Syria from Turkey.
German officials declined to give details about the contents of the documents in their possession. But Süddeutsche Zeitung reported that the data included responses to a list of 23 questions, as well as first and last names, noms de guerre and past addresses of thousands of fighters who were registered by the Islamic State when they crossed into Syria from Turkey.
The three German news organizations and Sky News all said they had obtained copies of the list from an informant. German officials declined to say how they had come in possession of the information.
Peter Neumann, director of the International Center for the Study of Radicalization at King's College London, said such documents have become widely available in Kurdish areas in northern Syria and along Turkey's border with Syria as discipline within the Islamic State has eroded in recent months.
Some experts have questioned the authenticity of the documents, citing inconsistencies in the name used to refer to the Islamic State and a flag different from the one usually associated with it. Charlie Winter, a senior research associate at the Transcultural Conflict and Violence Initiative at Georgia State University, said that in the past, documents with such anomalies have proven to be forgeries.
Noting that other experts have claimed that the information contained in the latest documents checks against data they have on individuals, he suggested that the formatting may have been altered. "Perhaps it's a case of raw data which is authentic, and in order to make it more desirable it was dressed up," Mr. Winter said.
Germany hopes that information from the documents can serve as evidence in the trials of several citizens facing charges related to terrorist activities, Interior Minister Thomas de Maizière told reporters on Tuesday.
"They offer a great chance to provide evidence and to prove that Germans took part in terrorist activities of the so-called Islamic State," Mr. de Maizière said of the documents. "We will be able to better prove these activities, speed and better clarify our investigations, and come to stronger sentences."
Membership in a terrorist organization is a criminal offense in Germany, but the authorities in the past have had a hard time proving that even someone who admitted to having been in Syria actually took part in fighting for the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL. A suspect currently standing trial in a Frankfurt state court on charges of illegal weapons possession and plotting an attack on a sovereign state — he is identified only as Abdulkarim B. in keeping with German privacy laws — was among those on the lists seen by Süddeutsche Zeitung, NDR and WDR, they said. If so, prosecutors would be able to press charges of membership in a terrorist organization.
Sky News reported the documents include information about 22,000 foreigners from 51 countries, including Britain and the United States. Recruits were also asked to give their blood types, mothers' maiden names and "level of Shariah understanding," among other information, Sky News said.
Prospective members were also asked whether they wanted to serve as fighters or as suicide bombers, the German news media reported.
The German authorities have said that they believe about 800 citizens have traveled to Syria to fight with ISIS , and that about a quarter of them have since returned. Several have been brought before the country's courts.
The recruits were also asked to name those who brought them into the Islamic State, Mr. Neumann said, noting that such data could help officials reconstruct the networks used to attract people to the cause.
[Source: By Melissa Eddy, The New York Times, Berlin, 10Mar16]
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 | This document has been published on 15Mar16 by the Equipo Nizkor and Derechos Human Rights. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. |