Earlier this month a Syrian mujahid launched a terror attack in Dresden, using a knife against two tourists. He is a multiple recidivist, and did time several years ago when he was a “youth”.

MissPiggy has provided additional context: the two tourists were a gay couple, and were internal tourists from elsewhere in Germany, with international tourism virtually destroyed by COVID-19 restrictions.

Many thanks to FouseSquawk for translating this article from the tech news site Heise.de:

Islamic knife attack in Dresden

by Gerhard Piper
October 22, 2020

Abdullah al-H. H. was considered a danger. He was released from prison at the end of September, and five days later committed the attack against tourists.

Abdullah al-H. H. is a Syrian citizen. In 2015 he came to Germany and lived in a home for asylum-seekers in Dresden-Pappriz (Wachwitzer-Höhenweg 1a). He possesses a short-term residence permit and is 20 years old.

Since the early summer of 2017 he began to be radicalized. Fatema A. recruited him for the Islamic State in July of 2017. The Syrian female was so badly wounded in an airstrike in 2012 that she has had to use crutches ever since. Her husband was apparently killed in a prison in 2015. In the year 2015 she came to Germany as a refugee. Her asylum request was granted. She created propaganda for the Islamic State. In July of 2016 she was promoting the then-ISIS on behalf of a compatriot at the Dresden University Clinic, as well as in July of 2017. In Internet chat she often posed as a man. According to the accusation she wanted to support an ISIS-connected sheikh in Morocco with €4,000.

In October or November of 2018 she was arrested and held in the Chemnitz prison. On July 15, 2019, her trial in the Higher Regional Court of Dresden began. Her defense attorney was Gisela Israel. On September 12, 2019, the Higher Regional Court of Dresden sentenced her to 15 months, which was suspended for a period of three years (Case number 4 St 2/19).

Abdullah al-H. H. described himself in a chat as a “sleeper cell”. He researched instructions on the Internet on how to build explosive belts, and was interested in the text “legal leader client for suicide killers”. The festival grounds of the Dresden Marien Bridge and the Cinema Nights on the Banks of the Elbe were apparently then in the sights of Abdullah al-H. H as possible targets for terror attacks. Since August of 2017 the Regional Criminal Police had classified him as a danger.

In September of 2018 the trial against him began in the Higher Regional Court of Dresden. On November 30, 2018, the court sentenced him to a youth sentence of two years and nine months for, among other things, recruiting members or supporters for the Islamic State, obtaining instructions for carrying out a serious state-endangering act of violence, bodily injury and threats. This punishment was carried out, according to the authority, by the district court in Leipzig on December 9, 2019, along with further sentencing for assault on an official and bodily injury.

The accused had to serve this youth sentence in full. Not until September 29, 2020 was he released by the Youth Penal Institution, Regis-Breitingen (Saxony). The district court in Borna ordered supervision for him. Thus he had to report three times weekly to the police station in Central Dresden.

On October 4, 2020 Abdullah al-H. H. committed a knife attack on two tourists in Dresden (Palace Street). One man from Krefeld (55 years) died in the hospital, and his companion from Cologne was wounded. At first, it was not clear why and by whom both men were attacked.

The police formed a special commission Palace Street (29 officers) under the direction of First Criminal Commissar, Frank Haschke. On October 20, 2020 Abdullah al-H. H. was arrested near the scene of the crime. Further investigation was taken over by the General Federal Prosecutor.