As we reported last summer, German police raided a “radical” mosque in the city of Hildesheim. This past Tuesday they carried out another raid to clean out a hotbed of Salafists in Hildesheim who were “radicalizing” young men and exporting them to the jihad in Syria.
Below are two videos about the operation. Many thanks to Ava Lon for the translations, and to Vlad Tepes for the subtitling.
Video 1:
Video 2:
The following report from Bild (also translated by Ava Lon) gives more details on Tuesday’s raid:
420 police officers deployed
Another anti-Islamist raid in Hildesheim
March 14, 2017
Hildesheim — The fight against an Islamist network operating in Germany continues!
by Karl Keim
[…]
Early Tuesday morning the police launched a large raid against the Salafist scene in Hildesheim. The reason for the action was a prohibition by the Lower Saxony Ministry of Interior against the “German-speaking Islamic Circle Hildesheim e.V.”
In the police action, which began around 6am on Tuesday, 420 personnel were involved. The mosque rooms of the DIK as well as the apartments of eight leading members of the association in the city and district of Hildesheim were searched. The Ministry of the Interior did not want to report whether there were any arrests. Nor did they want to share any information about the extent to which evidence has been secured.
Concerning the ban and dissolution of the association, Interior Minister Boris Pistorius (SPD) said: “With the ban on the organization, a hotspot of the radical Salafist scene in Germany was destroyed.” Muslims were targeted for indoctrination there to mobilize them to leave for Syria and Iraq, according to Pistorius. They were incited in the mosque of the DIK [German Islamic Circle] to join the Islamic State and to commit the most serious crimes. “The ban is a hard and important blow against Islamists in Lower Saxony.”
“About 50 people belonged to the hard core of the forbidden Islamic circle in Hildesheim, including a few dangerous ones,” reported Lower Saxony’s president Uwe Binias at the press conference after the raid.
The DIK was already the subject of a search action last year. The analysis of the evidence secured at that time confirmed the suspicion that Muslims in DIK Hildesheim were targets of radicalization in a conspiratorial way, a ministry spokesman said. They were incited to travel to Syria and Iraq and join ISIS there.
The assassin of the Berlin Christmas market, Anis Amri, had also stayed there in February 2016.
Transcript video 1:
| 00:00 | The mosque of the Association Islamic Circle German-language in Hildesheim | |
| 00:04 | was long known as a meeting place of radical Salafists. Now the police | |
| 00:08 | have ordered the prohibition of the organization. In the morning a large-scale razzia started | |
| 00:12 | in the homes of its leading members. Muslims were allegedly radicalized in the mosque organization, | |
| 00:16 | and partially incited to participate in the jihad as well. Also, the attacker from the Berlin | |
| 00:20 | Christmas market, Anis Amri, was allegedly seen there. | |
| 00:24 | “With the ban on the organization, a hot spot of the German radical Salafi scene was destroyed,” | |
| 00:28 | says Interior Minister Boris Pistorius. |
Transcript video 2:
| 00:08 | …so that you don’t pay so much attention any more | |
| 00:12 | to what is being said, but that you are also careful if now… | |
| 00:32 | Today the Interior Ministry of Lower Saxony banned | |
| 00:36 | the German-language Islamic Circle in Hildesheim, and for that reason, | |
| 00:40 | early in the morning police operations commenced, which means | |
| 00:44 | that on one hand, restraining orders were handed over, | |
| 00:48 | and, on the other hand, more than eight people were searched. |