Call for more cops, tougher asylum checks in Germany

BERLIN: Top security officials in Germany called yesterday for tougher security screening of asylum-seekers and announced that more police officers will be hired.

This follows four attacks in the country in the span of a week — two of them claimed by the extremist Islamic State (IS) group.

Horst Seehofer, the governor of Bavaria — where three of last week’s attacks took place — told the daily newspaper, Sueddeutsche Zeitung, yesterday: “We must know who is in our country.”

Thomas Strobl, the interior minister of Baden-Wuerttemberg, where a Syrian attacker killed a woman on Sunday, also demanded a tougher stance toward asylum-seekers.

“Those who abuse the right to hospitality must go back to their home countries, make no mistake about it,” Strobl told Funke media group.

Three of the attacks were carried out by recent immigrants, rekindling concerns about Germany’s ability to cope with the estimated one million migrants registered entering the country last year. Seehofer also announced that Bavaria would hire more police officers.

In the most recent attack, a 27year-old Syrian asylum-seeker set off a backpack laden with explosives and shrapnel on Sunday night, after being refused entry to a crowded music festival in the Bavarian city of Ansbach, killing himself and wounding 15 people.

IS published a video yesterday in which a man pledges allegiance to IS and vows Germany’s people “won’t be able to sleep peacefully anymore.” It appears to be the same as the one found by German investigators on the suicide bomber’s phone.

The man, believed to be the bombing suspect, whose name authorities have confirmed as Mohammad Daleel, appears on the video with his face covered with a black scarf, threatened to make life intolerable and that “we will blow up your homes”.

He said he had acted in response to IS’ call to target countries of the United States-led coalition fighting it in Iraq and Syria. Germany is not involved in combat operations but has contributed reconnaissance aircraft to the effort.

He threatened that the group would carry out more violence after the bombing in Ansbach, saying “this blessed operation will be followed by others”. AP